YP 4 Black Lives

Statement of Solidarity for the Black Community

Asian Health Services Youth Program

June 2020

“The walls, the bars, the guns and the guards can never encircle or hold down the idea of the people.”
– Huey P. Newton

We, as the Asian Health Services Youth Program (AHS YP), are a department under Asian Health Services (AHS), an organization whose hxstory took root in Oakland Chinatown in 1974, and was inspired by Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Anti-Vietnam War movements — all of which demonstrate our significant connection to the Black community. As part of AHS, we acknowledge our hxstory in advocacy, struggle, and community engagement as an agency. We are releasing this statement expressing our love for the Black Community, our solidarity for the #BlackLivesMatter Movement, and the empowerment, education, and liberation of the many People of Color subjected to oppressions rooted in hxstories of colonialism, White supremacy, and the systemic divides and the intersectionalities that they hold, including but not limited to anti-Blackness, xenophobia, homophobia, classism, etc. In this, we hope to encourage our fellow Asians and Asian Americans in taking an active role to learn and advocate in a time of pivotal change, especially in regards to supporting and centering Black voices amidst calls for justice against police brutality and disproportional health impacts throughout pandemic.

HXSTORY

Asian & Black Presence in the U.S.

Asian presence in the United States goes back 1587, when Spanish galleons carrying Pilipinx people landed in Morro Bay, California.¹ As time went by, other Asian communities arrived:

1790s - first recorded arrival of Indians in the U.S.
1830s - starting influx of Chinese arrive for economic opportunities
1868 - immigration of Japanese to the United States during the Meiji period
1903 - first group of 7,000 Koreans come to Hawaii as laborers
1965-1990s - immigrants and refugees from Southeast Asia (Vietnamese, Laotian, Thai, Khmer, Hmong, Iu Mien, etc.) arrive in the U.S. as a result of being displaced by war
Present - people from all over Asia come to the United States for economic, educational, and lifestyle opportunities²

The Asian population in the U.S. in July of 2019 was 5.9%.³

On the other hand, Black communities have existed in what is now the United States since 1619, when the Dutch sold African slaves for food and supplies in the colonies. As centuries passed, Black individuals have been exploited and dispersed across the U.S. through slavery, racism, segregation, and other methods enforced by institutions that have oppressed the their community and inhibited its growth and healing over hundreds of years. The Black population in the U.S. in July of 2019 was 13.4%.³

On Afro-Asian Relations

Since 1968, when UC Berkeley’s Asian American Political Alliance advocated on Yellow Power and first publicly introduced the “Asian American” identity, various Asian communities claimed a collective identity which was bounded to the influence and inspiration of the Black Power Movement.⁴ These movements were rooted in resistance, anti-imperialism, and empowerment.

Asian and Black communities would engage primarily in the United States, throughout many centuries, but solidarity between groups were strongly prevalent in the 1960s and 1970s — Afro-Asian relations were defined by some of the following collaborations:

The third world Liberation Front, which was the fight for Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State and UC Berkeley in 1968-1969
Black protesters going against the Vietnam War
Black protesters supporting the Pilipinx community affected by the fall of San Francisco’s Manilatown and I-Hotel
The publicly known close friendship between respective movement leaders Malcolm X and Yuri Kochiyama
Civil Rights protesters’ work leading to the passing of the Immigration Act of 1965, which led to an increase in Asian immigration and presence in the U.S. for decades to come

Asian immigrants/refugees and their families/descendants would struggle with the colonial/imperial mentality brought on to their communities by the concept and presence of White supremacy in their native lands. Asian groups eventually developed cultural aspirations to be treated as equals to White people, which led to growing anti-blackness over the years because whiteness was predominantly associated with higher status, security, and the American Dream and blackness was stereotyped as inferior in a multitude of levels — through education, status, etc. These ideas rooting from colonialism/imperialism and the existence of racist institutions led to the gradual drift and gap between the Asian and Black communities. Reflecting on that, the Asian people have struggles that relate back to those of the Black community, including but not limited to:

Anti-Asian and Anti-Black sentiments in the U.S.
The dehumanization of and longstanding violence inflicted on Black and Asian communities
The subjection and exploitation of Black and Asian labor through multiple labor-intensive institutions
Poverty in the Black and Southeast Asian Communities

Understanding that the two communities share common struggles yet different experiences presents intersecting relations that are heavily impacted by the Western imposition of slavery, orientalism, and colonialism on both communities — all of which marginalize and harm both in the spheres of capitalism, whiteness, and heteronormativity.

Current Issues

Abuse of Power in the System & Police Brutality

Across the United States, Black bodies are subjected to profiling, violence, murder, and other injustices committed by institutions built on racism and inequality. Black people are killed at a rate of three times higher than non-Black People of Color and white people, and of the Black population, 25% are killed while unarmed.⁵ There is an apparent abuse of authority within police systems that are shown through inadequate consequences for cops who have taken numerous Black lives. As Asian people, abuse of power by systems and institutions are not something the community is immune to.

Some grievances on Asians inflicted by unjust systems include, but are not limited to:

The recent incident when an Asian American doctor was struck and dragged by airport security on a plane back in 2017⁶
The unjust murder of Chinese American, Vincent Chin, by 2 White men because they thought he was Japanese and that Japan was the reason they lost their jobs in the 1980s⁷
The dropping of bombs and agent orange in Southeast Asia, and the violence and side-choosing it brought on Vietnamese, Laotian, Khmer, Hmong, and Mien folks before displacing them from their homelands in the 1960s-1990s⁸
The internment of Japanese Americans for the sake of “national security” in the 1940s⁹
The capture and dehumanizing exhibition of Filipinos in the World Fair in 1904¹⁰

The Black community is subjected to similar sources of oppression and violence that exist in the Asian community, and it becomes more and more necessary to be aware of the ideas, institutions, and events that are perpetuating these experiences of violence and abuse within society.

Anti-Blackness in the Asian Community

Despite shared experiences in relation to systems of oppression (racism, colonialism, heteropatriarchy, etc.), there is undeniably an existence of anti-Blackness present in the Asian and Asian American community. Lack of dialogue within the community and the silence resulting from it contributes to the further oppression of Black bodies as well as Asian ones, inhibiting potential understanding among both Black and Asian communities. Asian people share the mutual need to resist White supremacy, capitalism, and heteronormativity with Black people, yet there is still the reinforcement of anti-Black attitudes and behaviors seen within actions such as skin lightening, not acknowledging Afro-Asian narratives, and the appropriation of Black culture. Specific actions that include distaste for interracial relationships, use of derogatory slurs, and ignoring Black contributions in Asian hxstories and Asian American culture and pastimes play into the promotion of anti-blackness. These behaviors and attitudes have continued years of colorism among People of Color and have led Asians and other non-Black People of Color to disassociate themselves from the Black Struggle.

Model Minority Myth & Racial Triangulation

Asian peoples’ relationship with the Black community have been extremely dictated by harmful myths, stereotypes, and theories that pit people of different identities against each other. The Asian identity has been influenced by the Model Minority Myth, which deems Asians to be the epitome of what a minority group should look like — patient, hard working, and successful — all of which is implied to end discrimination against their communities and affirm an image of health, education, and financial security for Asian identifying groups. This is misleading for various reasons:

Asian identifying people are still seen as foreign in society and outside of the normal in society
Asian groups are subjected to appropriation, misrepresentation, and underrepresentation in the mainstream media
The Asian identity’s data are often not disaggregated, erasing the realities of ethnic groups such as:
- High rates of poverty among Southeast Asians in the U.S.
- Disparities among educational attainment between East Asians, South Asians, and Southeast Asians students
- Numerous health issues impacting the most at-risk Asian groups such Southeast Asian communities
- The targeting of Asian communities that identify as undocumented, Middle Eastern/South Asian, Muslim/Sikh, and refugees

The Model Minority Myth works in collaboration with the Racial Triangulation Theory, which showcases Asians as superior to Black communities and inferior to White ones. This theory also reaffirms an the idea of Asians as unable to assimilate, which is a vital point of influence within many Asian American groups who engage in the appropriation of Black culture yet concurrently aspire to meet White standards of socioeconomic positionality and behavior. Both the Model Minority Myth and Racial Triangulation Theory work hand in hand to divide the marginalized Black and Asian communities and disrupt solidarity between the two groups.

Proclamation of Support

AHS YP stands in solidarity with the Black Community. We believe that it is important to recognize the ties that the Black and Asian Communities have with one another and we would like to acknowledge that as members of a larger multicultural community, we have the duty to contribute to the love, support, awareness, and healing of our communities. We recognize the Asian community is subjected to different modes of oppression than that of the Black community, and that police brutality is but one aspect of oppression and violence that harms the Black community while institutions and policies related to the prison industrial complex, unaffordable housing, food insecurity, and other aspects of life continue to inhibit the liberation of the Black community. Considering shared struggles, we, as AHS YP would like to express our support for Black lives through efforts to:

Center Black voices and leadership as justice is demanded
Continue liberation work through the provision of leadership programs for our youth, which are predominantly youth of color (Asian, Black, Latinx, etc.)
- Topics focused in on our programs include ethnic studies, intersectionality, anti-blackness, the school-to-prison pipeline, cross cultural solidarity building, etc.
Practice accountability in our own space for the support of the Black community
- Dedicating space to engage multicultural groups with the idea of all liberation being tied to Black liberation
- Acknowledging our role in youth-based clinic care as an opportunity to improve on our services to underserved communities, especially considering that our specific patient population are predominantly youth of color (Asian, Black, Latinx, etc.)
Learn about intersectional narratives within the culture-based movements such as the current #BlackLivesMatter Movement and the hxstory of the Black Community as well as our own
Bring back what we learn to our family, friends, and other community members so that we may move towards ways of better practicing allyship
- Holding space for YP members to learn skills and gain resources to assist in conversations around anti-blackness, intergenerational trauma, and additional issues that bound communities to Black liberation and empowerment
Affirm that ALL #BlackLivesMatter, especially since mainstream media tends to erase narratives intersectional with the Black identity, including but not limited to womxn, queer folx, trans folx, undocumented folx, etc.
- Including the narratives, contributions, and causes of Black community groups and leaders in our curriculum (as well as sharing their role in our own group’s existence)

Call To Action

It is on us to uphold allyship and educate ourselves on how we can play an active role in supporting the Black community in their resistance and liberation. With the intent of first educating ourselves and our loved ones, we have provided a toolkit on our website’s Cross-cultural Solidarity Page that can help in enhancing our efforts to resist anti-Blackness in our community as well as encourage our participation in and solidarity building with #BlackLivesMatter.

We at AHS YP highly encourage reflection and mobilization within the Asian American community as well as the larger communities. In love and solidarity, we must come together and resist these systems that have oppressed our communities for so long.

In Community,

Asian Health Services Youth Program

Denise Lee | Child & Youth Services Manager
Danielle Miguel | Community Health Specialist

Emily Yang | Community Health Specialist

Kenneth Phan | Community Health Specialist

Sources