The Program in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies
We wish to extend a message to our community members who are experiencing yet another source of grief, following the shooting of seven women, six of whom were Asian American, along with two men, on March 16th in Atlanta. Their names are Delaina Ashley Yaun, Paul Andre Michels, Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, Soon Park, Hyun Grant, Suncha Kim, Yong Yue, and Elcias Hernandez-Ortiz. This act of sexualized and racialized violence is another painful instance of anti-Asian violence and harassment that has also escalated since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
We decry the media coverage that has reinforced harmful racialized and sexualized perceptions of Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islander women as exotic, subservient, and hypersexual. Such coverage is evidence of the veil of ignorance made possible by white cis-heteropatriachy and white supremacy. The widespread refusal to acknowledge how the violent history of American imperialism, conquest, and resource extraction across the Pacific informs the violence of our contemporary moment against the AAPI communities is another form of harm. And the model minority myth that has sought to erase anti-Asian racism is a 1966 invention meant to hinder solidarity across the civil rights movements, and it continues to drive a wedge between racial minorities in the interest of sustaining white supremacy.
We at GSWS/APC wish to express our ongoing solidarity with the Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islander community. We call on Penn to increase resources for support of AAPI students. As an elite institution, Penn is in a position to use education as a powerful tool against anti-Asian racism by building our Asian American Studies Program. We urge SAS to establish tenure-line faculty positions in Asian American Studies to make up for the attrition that has reduced course offerings and diminished the Asian American Studies Program’s ability to educate and mentor students. And we in GSWS vow to engage in self-study in order to find ways to increase our own educational and programmatic support of Asian American Studies as well as inclusion of our AAPI students and colleagues from across campus.
Resources
Penn
Task Force on Support to Asian and Asian American Students and Scholars
Penn AAPI Faculty and Staff Association
Local & National
Asian Americans United Philadelphia-based, supporting people of Asian ancestry to exercise leadership to build their communities and challenge oppression
National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum national organization with 14 member based chapters around the country
Asian American Feminist Collective engages intersectional feminist politics grounded within communities of those with backgrounds encompassing East, Southeast, and South Asian, Pacific Islander, multi-ethnic and diasporic Asian identities
CAAAV.org NY-based, builds the power of low-income Asian immigrants and refugees
APIENC building power and increasing visibility on the non-binary, queer and transgender AAPI community
Asian Health Services provides health, social and advocacy services of Asian people
Red Canary Song grassroots collective of Asian & migrant sex workers
Reduced fee therapy & support for Filipino/a/x & Asian community
Upcoming Events
March 16th - March 30th: Restorative Practice Circles for Asian and Asian American Penn Students (undergrad, grad & professional), alumni, post-docs, faculty, & staff. The Circles are part of the “Stopping the Hate and Starting to Heal” series sponsored by PAACH and Penn Global. Get more information and register here.
March 19th, March 26th, & April 2nd: ASAM Fellows Spring 2021 Symposium: The Foreign Body
Symposium run by the Asian American Studies Program.
Further Reading & Resources
Being Anti-Racist Includes Acknowledging The Asian American Experience
Don’t be a Bystander: 6 Tips for Responding to Racist Attacks (video)
Bystander Intervention Training to Stop Anti-Asian/American and Xenophobic Harassment (online; registration required)
Why Asian-American Violence is Rampant During the Coronavirus, Penn Today, featuring Professor Jo Park, March 31, 2020
We Want Cop-Free Communities: Against the Creation of an Asian Hate Crime Task Force by the NYPD, Asian American Feminist Collective, September 3, 2020
Ignoring the History of Anti-Asian Racism is Another Form of Violence, Connie Wun, March 1, 2021
The Answer to Anti-Asian Racism is Not More Policing, Kayla Hui, March 17, 2021
Racism is Behind anti-Asian American Violence, Even When it's not a Hate Crime, Pawan Dhingra, March 19, 2021