Interviewee: Harvey Dong

Interviewer: Christina Huang

Date: July 24, 2024

Location: Berkeley, CA

Transcriber: Christina Huang

Length: 54:09

Christina Huang (00:00:00)
Hello everyone. My name is Christina Huang. Today's date is July 24th, 2024 and I am recording from New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA. Today. I'm here with Professor Harvey Dong. Harvey Dong teaches ethnic studies courses as a lecturer in ethnic studies and Asian American and Asian American diaspora at UC Berkeley. Initially Doctor Dong took part in the 1969 Third World Liberation Front and also involved in the struggle to save the International Hotel and to protect Asian immigrant labor rights. Thank you so much for being here today. You are such an inspiration to me, motivated and excited. Every time I speak with you, I learn so much every time we speak. Do you want to introduce yourself and tell us where you're calling in from today?

Harvey Dong (00:00:50)
Yeah, I'm, out here in Berkeley, California, and I've been teaching, Asian American Studies and Asian Diaspora Studies and Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley ever since 1998. So it's been almost three decades of teaching, a little bit short of three decades. And the reason why I went into teaching and research and into the Ethnic Studies PhD program at UC Berkeley was because I felt that there was a shortage of information, knowledge, and history with regards to the origins of the Asian American movement and its contributions. The Asian American movement, which took place in the 60s and 70s, is an important facet of Asian American history and American history. It is an important part of American history. I see myself as being a facilitator, someone to transmit information, knowledge from one generation to the next. It's not like we did everything correct ourselves, but I also want to make sure that the record is set straight.

Christina Huang (00:02:22)
Yeah. Thank you for that. I'm really curious to learn about your own identity based experiences. Could you share with us about your upbringing and like how that influenced your identity as a child?

Harvey Dong (00:02:36)
I grew up in Sacramento, California. Sacramento had a small Asian American population–Chinese, Japanese and Filipino. One thing unique there was that this was where the transcontinental railroad began (in 1863). My grandfather came over from China in the 1890s; he had a small herb shop in Sacramento, Chinatown. The shop became a community focal point for Chinese workers, a number whom were involved in the building of the railroad. They would visit the shop regularly. . . warm themselves seated around the wood stove, share information, stories and gossip. It was a talk story environment. My Dad, a young boy then, listened to the old timers . . . and later retell the stories to me. There weren't very many books about Chinese Americans or Asian Americans. And if there were, they were books that justified exclusion and erased the history. I did have some background knowledge but when I went to UC Berkeley, Asian American history was nonexistent in the classes. Asians were invisible and this had negative effects on their social consciousness. One big influence on me was the Black Panther movement and point five of the Black Panther, program which called for the institution of Black studies. Point five had an influence on our generation in terms of our quest for an understanding of history, culture and identity.

Christina Huang (00:04:49)
Yeah, totally. Thank you for sharing about your background and everything. I think when you were going to college, the identity of Asian American was still being developed and formed. So for you, what does Asian American mean? Like, how would you define it and what does it mean to be Asian?

Harvey Dong (00:05:10)
I was a member of the Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA) which was formed in spring 1968. Yuji Ichioka and wife Emma Gee called a meeting to talk about bringing together Asian Americans into the antiwar movement, bringing Asian Americans into supporting the civil rights and Black power movement; and bringing Asian Americans together to deal with community problems. From these discussions the term Asian American became an organizing tool calling for Asian American solidarity. Introduced by Yuji Ichioka and Emma Gee, the term Asian American sprang from those meetings. It was an activist category. And it did draw people together. There were small numbers at first but later grew in large numbers statewide and nationally. I joined AAPA in October of that same year in late 1968. The term Asian American came to take hold as a new politically active, anti-racist and anti imperialist identity.

Christina Huang (00:06:43)
Yeah, I think also that's like the fact that Asian American is a political term. I think often today a lot of people use as a cultural or heritage identity marker. And often the conversation is often like dominated by East Asians. Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Americans. How would you say that we should, like, open up spaces for, you know, South Asians, Southeast Asians, and even like those who identify as West Asians?

Harvey Dong (00:07:14)
In the beginning, you could say that the exclusion laws were very successful in keeping the numbers down. There were less than 900,000, Asians in the United States because of anti-Chinese, anti Japanese and Filipino, anti South Asian, exclusion laws. The civil rights movement emerges and the Black movement becomes an inspiring force encouraging the development of many new social movements. You have all this activism out, and of this activism emerged as the term, Asian Americans that focus largely on the groups that were there in smaller numbers. But then the Asian American community began to change tremendously because of the Vietnam War and also because of changes in immigration policy as a result of the, civil rights movement. Asian immigration to the US opens up. New groupings migrate. Not no longer just four Asian ethnic groups but eventually more than two dozen diverse groups from diverse regions throughout Asia.There's lots of diversity and differences: people coming from different religions, ideologies and different regions of Asia. Areas that need to be addressed in terms of identity, community issues, class diversity and all that. And the way to address that is to look into the particular needs of each of the communities.

But there's also a common bond that Asian groups have, and that bond is coming from areas affected by colonialism and entering a new country (the US) that has a long history of anti-Asian racism. There's racism today that attacks Asians as one homogenized group. We're still homogenized but we also have particularities within. So yeah. So definitely it's a need for the more established Asian working groups to share their experiences and empathize with the newly entered Asian immigrant groups. The Chinese who came earlier and exist in larger numbers can tend to be the more dominant voice that suppresses and overrides the voices of the new immigrant and refugee groups. So definitely there's a need to pay attention to ensure that there's a diverseness and sharing of collective power in this term Asian American.

Christina Huang (00:10:15)
Yeah, totally. I think the idea is so complex and it's important to get into these nuances. As you were like coming to Berkeley, there was ethnic strikes happening in San Francisco State University, and then Berkeley shortly followed. As you mentioned, you became a member of the AAPA. Can you describe like, what was it that got you involved in this work, especially with the backdrop of the anti- Vietnam War and a lot of other issues with civil rights and things like that coming up during your time in college.

Harvey Dong (00:10:52)
I took part in the Stop the Draft Week, activities in 1967 and 1968. At that time, everyone was subject to the draft. If you were a male, young male and your grades were below a B, you could be subjected to the draft. That was a concern, which I had along with my roommates and other students. And when I was living in the dormitories, we used to have discussions about this which ended in heated debate. I remember on our floor where some of the students felt there's nothing you could do– that you have to support my country, right or wrong. Myself and fortunately, my roommate, took the anti-war position. At the beginning, we were both in ROTC . . . the Reserve Officers Training Corp program. We eventually dropped out of that because we felt that the war was immoral and genocidal. In 1968, the anti-war movement merged with the Black Power. I took part in those activities, but not did not see many Asian faces. When AAPA was formed, it was the right time because the original corp of members were individuals who were involved in these types of movements, and they felt that now was time for an Asian American voice to speak to what was happening in the world. Definitely, this was a big change for me from being an individual attending anti-war and Black Power/civil rights events to joining an Asian American political organization such as AAPA.

Myself and a friend of mine from Sacramento, Steve Wong spent some time volunteering as tutors in San Francisco Chinatown. I had bumped into him because he had transferred from community college, and I asked him if he would be interested to do community work. Both of us actually spent time going to San Francisco Chinatown doing youth tutorials, we also spent time meeting and talking to community organizers there, meeting different peoples. This involvement helped establish ties and connections for future community organizing, such as the International Hotel and working with community youth. This work led to a type of identity or transformation that comes from individual decision making and practice. It's not like there is a group, I'm going to join it but you go through a lot of questioning, like, how do I want to spend my time? Should I concentrate on going to class or I should concentrate on going to community? How can I do both? And then there's time spent for meetings and discussions. We had to figure out how to manage and make best use of our time, take on the challenges and at the same time, not be burned out from all the responsibilities.

Christina Huang (00:15:09)
Yeah. How did you kind of balance it? Like how did you balance your grades, your studies on top of going to all these meetings, you're going on strikes now. How how did you navigate the emotional turmoil?

Harvey Dong (00:15:22)
Well, as far as the strike, it kind of got resolved by the fact that the university was sending in massive numbers of police and using tear gas on campus. And so the whole campus was in turmoil and it was difficult to go to class. But at the same time, we were encouraging people not to go to class because there was a strike and that we had to. What was of utmost importance was solidarity. And then. But I think for myself after the strike. You see the strike. And it began on January, 22nd, 1969. And it ended on March 15th, 1969 about a ten week strike. And after that we were trying to establish the Asian American Studies program and the Ethnic Studies department, and there was a huge shortage of teachers. And we had to train ourselves to be teachers. So just imagine you're a striker and all of a sudden you're a teacher. You're a striker, and all of a sudden you're a community organizer, because we did reach a certain level of power on campus because they had to give some reforms. But at the same time, they gave us a small budget. And if we didn't fulfill organizing these classes and all this stuff and the community work and all that we would have been a big failure. So a lot of pressure to put on you if you were like a junior. We had to go to meetings for that. And then we started arguing with each other because it meant also that some of us want to do more community work. Some of us wanted to institutionalize Asian American Studies.

And so then we had this division between campus and community that began to emerge. And then I just remember this one discussion where we had opened a community field office. And we were meeting with international hotel tenants, and we were working with at-risk teenagers at this center. And then there's a core of us doing that. But then on campus, there was lots of turmoil because things were going in a certain direction where it was becoming more institutionalized as part of the university. And we had to decide where we were going to spend our time. If you start something and then it becomes something else. So we had to make a decision. And so as far as school and all that stuff, I think I stopped. I kind of dropped out for like two or three years, and I didn't really go back until the stuff was somewhat semi settled. Yeah.

Christina Huang (00:19:13)
Yeah, yeah. It would be very difficult to try to get education and learn. When you're also expected to be the scholar and also taking all take on these so many roles and wearing all these hats. Could you like, describe a little bit about the strategies that AAPA used? I know you mentioned telling people to not go to classes. What did the strategy look like?

Harvey Dong (00:19:40)
Well, we had people who took part in picketing the strike lines. And that was usually at key entrances to the campus. We formed another group involved in legal defense and raising bail money, because as soon as the strike began, there were many instances where police would come and arrest anyone who had spoken on the microphone at the rallies. So it was kind of funny because they were just grabbing anybody who was a speaker. So whoever got arrested, we have to raise cash bail and we have to work with lawyers. And then I remember we also had a Speakers bureau that went to different organizations like campus to talk about the issues because otherwise, people would only get information from the newspapers and then just papers would be distorted. So, we had to have PR for that kind of stuff. And then we would meet as the different groups would meet like the Asian American Political Alliance. The Native American Students Union, the Afro-American Student Union, and Mexican American Student Union. They would all meet on their own to figure out their particular questions of the day. And then a final decision making would be made when all the groups decide direction.

Christina Huang (00:21:34)
That's really interesting. Especially as Asian American studies and organizing has been so inspired by other racial and ethnic groups. What did like solidarity community building with Black, Latino, Chicano and Indigenous groups look like for you?

Harvey Dong (00:22:00)
Let's see. There's a website called revolution.berkeley.edu that was created by a UC Berkeley sociology class. In one of the sections of the website, they uploaded some of the documents the strikers had written. One of the documents was the constitution of the TWLF. It was actually the Afro American Students Union constitution. It was reedited to be the constitution of the TWLF. They crossed out Black and replaced it with Third World. It was African American students that had negotiated the longest with the campus, to no avail. Because of the deadlock in negotiations between the University and the Black students, they concluded that they had no recourse but to call strike. Afterwards, they approached the other groups: Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA), Mexican American Student Confederation (MASC) and Native American Students Union (NASU). Since all these groups were negotiating separately for their own courses and were running into difficulty; the Third World Liberation Front (TWLF) was formed at UC Berkeley in December 1968, which led the strike in January 1969. So they reached us because you could say in unity there is strength.

Christina Huang (00:23:22)
Yeah. That's powerful. And that's so beautiful. And it's amazing when there is a racial solidarity amongst a lot of groups because then you have the numbers and the community is powerful.

Harvey Dong (00:23:34)
That kind of came up, decades later in 2015. I was teaching a community class at UC Berkeley. Asian American communities. And there was also an ethnic studies class on the civil rights movement and that was taught by a Chicano Studies, Mexican American professor Carlos Munoz. Our classes merged to form this conference on the lessons of the TWLF. strike. So we have an info session in the morning with the old timers. And then in the afternoon, there were panel discussions on what's currently happening and one of the panels was organized by the Black Students Union (BSU). And so the question came up, what is needed to build solidarity between African Americans and Asian Americans. And I remember the BSU members said that it makes a big difference if the Asians show up when there's struggles that Black students feel are important on campus. Solidarity is important. And so you can kind of see from there this idea of showing up for each other is important. You break the ice and isolation. You combat media stereotyping and show alternatives to divide and rule. The only way to break it up and break that down is for people to show up for each other's struggles.

Christina Huang (00:25:29)
Yeah, that's so powerful. And I think that's really powerful today as well. And a lot of struggles, I think we're in a whole nother wave of talking about civil rights, talking about Palestine, talking about Black Lives Matter movement, things like that, that we need to show up for each other's struggles. I wanted to ask a little bit about the response of the UC Berkeley administration. You mentioned that they were bringing in police, large numbers of police forces, in response to student protests. How did you and other organizers, the Asian-American organizers, navigate this challenge?

Harvey Dong (00:26:16)
Well, so definitely you have to plan in and respect the history because they have power, they have force, and they brought in National Guard and even tanks. Thinking about it, It's silly but it happened. And they had this Bay Area Mutual Police Assistance program where they could bring in highway patrol and tactical police from all over. So definitely you have to take those things into account. We try to control the violence and as far as the strikers and their supporters, we didn't want something that could set off a huge attack against the strikers. We had to be prepared legally, strategically, and tactically. And tactics means form affinity groups and stuff like that. People being prepared, you have to figure out different levels of preparation. You can't just call something and show up and expect it's going to work out. And then today it gets even more complicated because you have white supremacists that go out and try to disrupt peaceful protests.

Christina Huang (00:28:13)
Yeah, totally. And a lot of times, these white supremacists are often protected by police officers, which makes it difficult. I remember, hearing a story about the ethnic strikes for Asian Americans and when the strategy was to run into Dwinelle Hall since it was like a maze at the bottom and try to lose police.

Harvey Dong (00:28:33)
We copied the zengakuren student movement and how they formed mobile picket lines, so that you could exit areas at a certain time. People are forming issues, snake like lines throughout campus going through a building to classrooms and stuff.

Christina Huang (00:28:58)
How did that work? So it's like one group like one mobile group would go out and then go back in?

Harvey Dong (00:29:07)
I guess you could say it would be like 5 or 6 people abreast and behind you is another 5 or 6 people. So it'd be like one long serpent.

Christina Huang (00:29:20)
Oh wow

Harvey Dong (00:29:23)
And it can go anywhere because the head of the line would direct it.

Christina Huang (0:29:31)
Oh, wow. And so would it like if you were confronting like police or something would. How would that ?

Harvey Dong (00:29:42)
You would know at a certain time. Should you turn left or right.

Christina Huang (00:29:54)
That's so interesting. I never heard of that. I would love to.

Harvey Dong (00:29:57)
So we learned that from the Japanese student movement. Ever heard of the zengakuren student movement?

Christina Huang (00:30:04)
No. Can you tell me more about that?

Harvey Dong (00:30:06)
It was a huge ... [typing into chat] I guess you could say it was the equivalent of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in the US. But was bigger and so you see the photos of that.

Christina Huang (00:30:41)
Oh, wow.

Harvey Dong (00:30:45)
So there were communications between antiwar groups internationally. There are similar internationalist movements today anti-Iraq War, Palestine protest. The anti-Iraq war involved huge protests but today there’s a huge international protest movement to support Palestine.

Christina Huang (00:31:26)
Yeah, totally. I think it's also we've been seeing the student protest in Bangladesh, this is like a student revolution kind of ongoing, and it mimics a lot of tactics and strategies from '68 and '69. And I wanted to ask about what is going through your mind when you're seeing these photos of student encampments like they did during the anti Vietnam War? And also the immense use of police force, the militarization of police and also the brutality, that students are facing today.

Harvey Dong (00:31:58)
We didn't have encampments back then and we didn't have hunger strikes back then. We were more influenced by the Black Power movement phase of the civil rights approach. It is more from the angle of building as much mass power as possible. Asserting the right to protect yourself. The right to self-defense. And this idea of solidarity. And then today, I guess you can say there's lots of, similar but also some differences to the movements today. I think back then, the Panthers were a big influence. They're kind of viewed as the vanguard, whereas today the movement leadership is more dispersed. Do you think it's better that way? To have it disperse?

Christina Huang (00:33:15)
I'm not sure. I personally, I think it's good to have some sort of unity in strategy. If it's there's too much, too many organizations. It can get disorganized and communication can be difficult at times. Yeah. But do you have any advice for current students, who are involved in this protest with your expertise?

Harvey Dong (00:33:42)
You can't say that we did everything the best way because I think we just kind of went out there and just did it from what angle of how we could disrupt and stop the machine? But definitely, I think you do need some type of structure that is democratic. It needs to deal with changes as things happen.

Christina Huang (00:34:25)
I also kind of wanted to ask a little bit about how. So after your involvement, and it was very successful in getting Asian American Studies programs and other Ethnic Studies. You taught the department's first community issues courses at Berkeley. Now it's 55 years later and you're continuing to teach and bring students on field trips and getting involved in community organizing. What changes have you seen in the last five decades?

Harvey Dong (00:35:02)
Definitely, there's, students who enjoy taking the classes and they get a lot out of it. And their interests range from identity to becoming active, organizer, within the community. So I think that's a pretty positive thing. And there's more information out there. And there's more of an Asian American place, but I think it's important for students, wherever they are to form some type of collective on campuses or if they're working in the community where they can talk about direction and strategy. But not to have these collectives be, what they call cultish or, or anything like that. But it's open as possible to work with other communities and with each other. When we had the Asian American movement, we had different political trends and different types of leadership. Ideologies and other stuff. And there also tended to be sectarian differences that seemed like they would never be resolved. So that's a big thing, too. There are a lot of ways you can say it's unavoidable because you have personalities and that the main problem, I guess you can say is to try to avoid clashes in terms of egos. Or I don't want to work with that person because that person doesn't respect me or that kind of stuff. How do you develop new ways of working with each other? So that's been a big issue for us back then. How about here today?

Christina Huang (00:37:32)
Today. All right. I think a lot of times with students organizing intergroup conflicts with one another and drama between groups since everyone is still rather relatively young and that's sometimes and becomes the demise of a lot of groups.

Harvey Dong (00:37:54)
Yeah. The other thing, too, is I notice that there's a lot of things that people have to deal with just so when they're on campus. There's a career studies and all this stuff, but it's important to have a space where you can have this collective conversation, discussion so people can grow, because otherwise, if left spontaneously, what's going to happen is, those ideas are going to stagnate and you just move on and then someone has to reinvent the wheel again.

Christina Huang (00:38:35)
Yeah, totally. And I think you make a really good point, a lot of the things that are important in higher education is not just in the classroom. Like when it comes to teaching, it's not just about lectures and textbooks, but like as you have done so brilliantly in your classes, it's like doing community work. It's going on field trips. It's you're getting involved with organizations, like the Asian Prisoner Support Committee. And I think you have inspired your students to get involved. Can you talk about a little bit about your teaching methods and how do you get this word about Asian American history but get involved in Asian American community?

Harvey Dong (00:39:12)
Well, I would say that. It's important for it. Depending on where your campus is, if it's in an isolated area, you have to figure out how to find community and stuff. But in the Bay area, there's different Asian communities that students can go to in terms of field trips, historical, cultural, educational, or just to learn about community problems and stuff. So doing that going as a group helps because they can share experiences and stuff and then also, build social relations with each other and then tie that in with the class. So definitely the community engagement part is important. And also, having students work in teams together and that helps break down this isolation because I know a lot of times, some students might say I'd rather just do it myself because I have my ideas. And so some of the other students probably contribute.

Christina Huang (00:40:45)
Yeah, totally. So on the topic of teamwork and community building, you have modeled it brilliantly by opening up Eastwood books, alongside your wife, Bea Dong, who you met during your time at Berkley when she was entering as a freshman. What does it mean to you to pursue your activism with a lifelong partner for multiple decades?

Harvey Dong (00:41:18)
In Fall 1969, she was part of the first Asian American Studies cohort group to take Asian American Studies classes at UC Berkeley. She worked in the Asian American Studies office and later became a member of the Asian (American) Studies Council, negotiating with the administration for program budget. About a year after, she dropped out of UC Berkeley. She then became involved in forming this garment workers co-operative in San Francisco's Chinatown. In 1981, she became disabled in a shooting incident, a mentally ill person shooting into a crowd. I supported her efforts to return back to Berkeley in 1991, to ethnic studies literature classes. That’s how I ended up returning back to ethnic studies because those classes involved myself to guest lecture about the Asian American movement and the Third World Strike. I ended up volunteering and doing presentations. Definitely we always worked as a team. When she graduated she had a degree in ethnic studies, and we were friends with Mr. Teo Ng, a Chinese Filipino owner of Eastwind Books and Arts. And he told us that he was selling the main Eastwind Books and Arts; the new owners want to shut down the Berkeley Eastwind Books and Arts shop. He wanted to know if we wanted to continue it. So that's how we got involved. The strategy that we had for Eastwind books was to turn it into a bookstore-community center. We had run a community center decades earlier called the Asian Community Center so here was the opportunity to do exactly that. That's the roots of Eastwind books of Berkeley.

Christina Huang (00:44:19)
Oh, that's so beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. And you guys have an immense impact in your community. People come and take pictures.

Harvey Dong (00:44:28)
Yeah. So, we actually ran it for 27 years, and we closed the physical store last year. And it was quite a surprise because on the week that we were closing we had so many customers come in to thank us and stuff, and people would bring their kids and take pictures. Because they felt that the bookstore meant a lot to their lives and also to their kids. So since then, we've still been doing book events, publishing books, and working with community groups. This coming Saturday. I'll be going to Japantown to help promote the book: "Bridges that Yuri Built", if you heard that one (about Yuri Kochiyama)?

Christina Huang (00:45:30)
No, I haven't.

Harvey Dong (00:45:33)
It was written by her great granddaughter about Yuri Kochiyama and her political activism. It’s also sold on the Eastwind books website.

Christina Huang (00:45:45)
Oh good luck. I hope everything goes well. But that's amazing that you've been spending multiple decades giving back to your community and things like that. And I hope you're finding support from your community as well.

Harvey Dong (00:46:03)
Yeah. I guess you get involved and all this stuff and all of a sudden you find yourself immersed and pressed for time.

Christina Huang (00:46:23)
Totally. What do you think? Like if you had more time, what would you want to invest it in?

Harvey Dong (00:46:35)
Well, I'd say probably have time to spend writing about the lessons from the Asian American movement utilizing oral histories. I have some unfinished projects with one involving the history of Chinese in the Sacramento River delta, and in particular on the rural California Chinese community in Locke, California. I am also in the celebration of the archives of cinematographer-documentarian Loni Ding, which will be next Spring 2025. I was actually involved in preserving her archives. She did this fantastic documentary series called "Ancestors in the Americas" about the origins of Chinese and Asian migration from the East to the West.

Christina Huang (00:47:53)
Oh, wow. That's incredible I hope. I hope everything goes well. You should definitely send it my way because that's fascinating. I'd love to see it when it comes out.

Harvey Dong (00:48:02)
So there's lots of things that are important to do, but I think the younger generation is going to have to find their own way.

Christina Huang (00:48:14)
Yes. We have to learn. I think it's so important that we learn from our movement elders. You guys have such a wide breadth of knowledge and like a reservoir of information that we need to draw from. What would your advice be for the next generation? Who wants to get involved with the Asian American studies movement and just organizing?

Harvey Dong (00:48:39)
I agree it is important to form some type of collectivity amongst students. So that there be a voice addressing the most pressing issues in the community today. That would be focusing on community engagement, local struggles; but also the international situation which is worsening. The war in Palestine and international tensions, we are at the brink of WW3 which could be around the corner. We need to work together collectively to stop this.

Christina Huang (00:49:39)
Yeah, totally. That's great advice. I think we should continue talking about global issues, talking about, anti-imperialism and legacy of colonialism. I have one more question for you and my last question, but today's interviews like, what does it mean for you to be part of the Asian American Studies movement, as a whole?

Harvey Dong (00:50:11)
My take on it is that... My main role is to share this knowledge of the Asian Americans from the past to the present, and also to encourage students, as well as my colleagues, to be more braver. It's that because there's been a lot of pressures on people to remain silent. So, we have to break that. I remember we always talked about the silent Asians and how we got to break that stereotype, because otherwise we're always going to be viewed as the model minority . . . passive Asian Americans. We have to break that. How do you break it? It would be to not just unite with Asian Americans, but with other peoples of color, people that are oppressed and form solidarity with them.

Christina Huang (00:51:27)
I think that's a brilliant point. The Asian Americans, I think a lot of people fear retaliation, especially when we're building our careers. If you talk out too much, if you get arrested, talk about, controversial issues. If you if you do too much, you can ruin your career, you can be doxxed and there's a lot of safety issues, but it's important that we stand up and talk and speak out about these issues.

Harvey Dong (00:51:53)
If you look at Asian American history, historically, the things that do stand out, those times where there's lessons from resistance and people at different points in Asian American history.

Christina Huang (00:52:08)
Agreed. I love looking at moments of resistance, and I think it's so powerful, as you said, to challenge the model minority myth. If there's anything else you would think it's important to.

Harvey Dong (00:52:23)
I guess the other thing I was just thinking of was that it's important. Important to speak up against acts of racism, imperialism, violence and there's many cases where individuals have been wrongly harmed such as the Chinese American scientists and engineers cases of disloyalty and being falsely charged with espionage. In the present souring of relations between China and the US, there's many examples of that type of racial scapegoating. It's important to address those cases and not let those things go by. I know a teacher named Eric Norberg. We are friends with his parents and have known him all his life. He's biracial, part Chinese, part white, and he's been teaching at Berkeley High School for decades, teaching art. A very popular teacher who believes in social justice. He was recently dismissed, or pulled from his job because he was teaching art from the Palestinian people.

Christina Huang (00:53:42)
Oh, wow.

Harvey Dong (00:53:44)
Yeah. So he's had a big support base, so there's lots of incidents like that that need to be addressed and people need to speak out. When there's injury to one person, it's important to view it as an injury to all.