Whether you’re organizing a protest, lobbying for more student org funding, or defending the Earth from an alien invasion, fighting for change can be difficult. If changemaking is the challenge, then community organizing is your super-powered robot armor. And we’ll teach you how to use it! In this workshop, we’ll be exploring the same mechanisms of change that AAPI organizers used to fight for Asian American Studies, freedom from Internment, and more. Then, we’ll discuss how to apply these principles to the organizing you’re doing right now. In this workshop, we’ll explore the fundamentals of power, the cycle of change, and grassroots student organizing. Together, we will apply these principles to the activism and organizing work being done on your very own campus. Join APIAVote for this action-packed session!

Restorative bilingualism of a heritage language reacts to the cultural estrangement, racialization, and "linguistic exile" of Asian/Americans. Participants will access a space where they may navigate how language loss has affected their construction of an identity that is defined to be predominantly bilingual and bicultural. The workshop will ask participants to recall elements and experiences that they associate with words from their heritage tongue and homelands as a way to begin to restore confidence in language control—even if it begins at murmuring—and discuss the merits of enculturation. To reclaim the language loss experience, attribute it to American upbringings of assimilation, and re-examine "fluency" that speaks to your identity, is also proof of the resilience and survival of diaspora and our communities.

bring back home. While communication and relationship-building across generations can often be difficult to navigate, the curation of sound waves have the potential to provide routes to shared understanding with the emergence of growing technology and digital media. During this workshop, we will explore the aural genealogies of where we come from and how the music we listened to in our minivans from CD albums clipped to the visor growing up can blend into the ways that we share our stories with personal mixtapes fit for future generations. (Laptops and cellphones recommended, headphones/earbuds strongly recommended.)

“Talking to other Asian people, a lot of things have started to connect.”

Are stories more than fun anecdotes? How do we construct meaning in the way we tell stories about our lives? This workshop looks at how Asian Americans create and find communities, connections, and meaning on college campuses through stories in the context of everyday conversations. Methodologies from sociolinguistics, the study of language and society, are implemented to analyze how Asian Americans talk about the idea of home through their stories. What does the idea of home look like for Asian American students? How can we begin to design that home?

Those who are interested in sociolinguistics, storytelling, and community-building might be interested in this workshop.

In this workshop, participants will learn about the life of multidisciplinary artists Isamu Noguchi and Maya Lin, interpret works of their art, and go on a guided looking tour of a sculpture each made for Yale University. Both Lin and Noguchi’s public and landscape artwork shift the way visitors understand their surroundings and are inherently multiuse: encouraging people to explore, play, and reflect. Noguchi’s influential ideas about the relationship we have with our environment (both natural and built) serve as valuable ways to think critically about the spaces we create for our respective student communities. Lin’s incorporation of Eastern and Western influences in her work demonstrates how we can work both within and outside of our identity when creating these spaces. Participants will come away with a new way of thinking about how Asian American and Pasifika identity can be woven joyfully into spaces we create through direct and subtle ways.

“Cultural Blueprinting: Washington D.C.’s Chinatown and You” focuses on the intersection between cultural identity and architecture in ethnic enclaves, delving specifically into Washington DC’s Chinatown as a case study. Exploring how Asian Americans navigate cultural landscapes, participants will envision their heritage within urban landscapes.

Since the 1980s, DC’s Chinatown has seen efforts to revitalize its cultural essence by infusing traditional and contemporary Chinese elements into the area's architecture and surroundings. The workshop will delve into the Chinatown Design Guide Study, detailing architectural suggestions such as decorative motifs, materials, and colors.

The interactive session begins with a lecture on DC Chinatown's history and architectural initiatives. Following this, attendees will design structures and neighborhoods reflecting their own cultural identities. Small-group and large-group discussions will provide participants with the opportunity to share their designs with one another.

We are living in a new period for Asian cuisines in America. While our parents’ generation may have been tormented for the food their families made, our generation has experienced unprecedented attention and love for our cuisines. Seemingly, everyone’s favorite dish is now a steaming, savory bowl of ramen or baos filled with delicious toppings. For the most part, this newfound attention to our cuisines is welcome. Asian restaurants are thriving and people can take pride in their heritage. Yet, this new era for our food has also highlighted glaring issues for our communities. Why are some Asian cuisines valued more than others? How do we prevent the disappearances of our Chinatowns, Little Saigons, and other ethnic enclaves? How do we define authenticity and is it a fair and objective way to rate Asian food? This workshop will explore these themes of authenticity, value, and place to better understand the discourse surrounding Asian cuisines and provide an in-depth discussion about how we, as young Asian Americans, can ensure that our food is celebrated in an equitable and honorable manner.

This workshop will situate Asian American and Pasifika communities’ diverse cultural wear within the context of the larger Asian American resistance toward racial oppression. When we wear cultural attire amid hate crimes and false ideas of Asian complicity, we refuse to be silenced and redefine what it means to be American outside of Western expectations. In proudly displaying our heritage, we reject prejudicial demands that we either assimilate or “return to where we really came from.” This workshop will highlight and appreciate the historical, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds of various garments from the Vietnamese áo dài to the Indian sari. We will especially delve into recent examples of social action such as the movements to revive the Hanfu and to reclaim the Aloha shirt by Chinese and Polynesian designers respectively. We will also discuss avenues for us to integrate cultural wear more into our everyday lives. Overall, this presentation aims to facilitate conversations on the joys of cultural self-expression and the power of cultural pride in the face of hate. Throughout the workshop, we will provide time for people to share their personal experiences, and we will provide attendees the opportunity to design their own cultural wear.

Our workshop intends to explore how the arts serve as a tool of activism within South Asian History, and how this has translated into activism within the South Asian-American diaspora. We will discuss how music and dance aided in anti-colonialist sentiments and protest movements, serving as a unifying factor against British colonialism. We would like to illustrate how this unifying force regressed into a force of division that restricted artistic expression to upper class and caste symbols following partition; particularly symbolizing upper-caste Brahmin privileges. We intend to educate on how upper class and caste circles mobilize the arts as a barrier to entry, preserving its prestige amongst the socio-economic and caste elite of South Asian-Americans. Finally, we wish to connect the two perspectives and purposes of art in South Asian past and present to distinguish how the arts have existed as means of resistance through beauty and joy for minority groups within South Asian history. Art has been used as a combative force to destabilize oppressive occupations but to also deconstruct prejudiced narratives within South Asian communities. We want to bring attention to the network of art as an interwoven force that has assembled in activism against Nationalism, supremacism, and casteism.

While SPAM—the iconic block of seasoned and canned meat—has been embraced by Asian and Pasifika communities and cultures, it is also a relic of wartime struggle during American imperialism in Asia and the Pacific. This workshop will tackle the complex history of this “miracle in a can,” from its militaristic roots to its effects on American hegemony across Asia and the Pacific. Since the product’s introduction during American occupation of the Pacific front throughout the Second World War, SPAM has found itself on dinner tables and into local cuisines, straddling the line between its identities as a cheap processed meat and a beloved delicacy. Today, SPAM has been reintroduced to the American diet through Asian and Pasifika diasporic communities. What does the embracing of SPAM by diasporic communities tell us about the nuances between pre-colonial and post-colonial Asian and Pasifika identities? How does SPAM represent both imperialism and struggle and reclamation and joy?

This workshop will explore the history of Asian American photojournalists and their role in resistance movements and in documenting Asian American stories. Participants will learn works from a few specific Asian American photographers and explore their photographs both visually and thematically. We will dive into the artists’ motivations and arguments to create a narrative that shows how communities resisting together leads to joy, as well as how portraying real Asian American families expressing joy and sharing their stories through photojournalism is its own form of activism. Attendees will also be engaged by discussing how photography can be used for storytelling and advocacy within their respective organizations.

Oftentimes, we are taught self-care and means of meditation through singular methods, where silence is usually the goal for our sense of sound. However, sound is crucial to how we sit with discomfort, listen to our bodies, or simply be as it is directly correlated with science. This workshop not only goes into the science of sound, but links it to sound frequencies, leading you to experiencing a sound bath via 7 sound bowls. The only requirement: to come with an open mind.

Join us for a teach-in on the intertwined nature of the Filipino and Palestinian struggle, the right of all oppressed people to liberation, and the necessity of building genuine solidarity against the US-backed Zionist occupation. Learn and discuss our role as diasporic activists, and how we can continue to organize and grow our peoples' movements–in Palestine, in the Philippines, across our diasporas everywhere–to see a free Palestine and a free Philippines within our lifetime.

"In the midst of adversity, the Palestinian people have woven a tapestry of resilience, drawing strength from a trinity of pillars: Love, Religion, and Art. This workshop aims to delve into the profound interplay of these elements within the Palestinian struggle for justice and liberation.
Love: At the heart of Palestinian resistance lies a deep-seated love for their land, culture, and identity. Participants will explore the concept of sumud (steadfastness) and the enduring love that fuels the resilience of Palestinian communities amidst occupation and displacement...

In the past five years, Connecticut has passed various pieces of legislation focused on including historically excluded communities' stories in schools (e.g. integrating Asian American & Pacific Islander studies into K-12 public education, development of a K-8 Model Curriculum that includes AAPI Studies). The purpose of this session will be to share the work of various collectives and organizations in passing the legislation, where we are in our efforts leading up to mandated implementation start dates (including coalition building and collaboration across communities of color), and what we see as our work into the future, both in and outside of schools and beyond the current legislative requirements. Hear from our unique configuration of high school students, college students, higher education faculty, parents and caregivers, and teachers and educators about our progress and challenges and how you can take action with us here in Connecticut or across the country.

This workshop will discuss the importance of archiving Asian American student life and activism, as well as the methodology necessary for a campus archiving project. We'll review Dartmouth’s “Asian American Student Activism at Dartmouth College,” a student-led digital exhibit that focuses on the history of Asian American students at Dartmouth, and analyze some of the triumphs and challenges that we encountered as student researchers. We'll also teach basic methods that students can use to create their own projects, such as interviews and document-based research. Finally, we'll discuss how you can create an archive on your own campus and use this knowledge to build upon the legacy of previous Asian American community-building and organizing.