As our Leadership and Advocacy Training facilitator Linh Chuong describes in our documentary, Made by Refugees: 40 Years of SEARAC, Southeast Asian Americans often spend time explaining to people who they are or what their unique refugee history is. Linh, the daughter of refugees who is also a former SEARAC staffer, looks back on her first ever advocacy visit.
“[The staffer] looked us in the eye and was like, Oh, I get that these things matter, but this isn’t what my constituents care about. And I was really taken aback because I grew up in that neighborhood, and I know what her constituents look like, and alot of them look like me, but for her, she had never seen them because she didn’t understand that privilege is necessary for them to even come to DC, and privilege is necessary for them to be able to speak English. My dad worked three jobs in order to support us, and my mom worked 12-hour days at a garment factory to support us. At the top of her mind is survival, not advocacy for her programs, let alone to understand what these programs are.”
As we’ve been sharing with you all year long, this year we rang in our 40th birthday year. As part of this special milestone, we invited a film crew to capture our 20th annual Leadership and Advocacy (LAT) in action, as well as interview some of our partners. Click HERE to watch the documentary.
With your support, we can continue fighting for SEAA visibility every day. Your donation would enable us to invest more time in researching, surveying, and making human connections with community members to inform reports like this year’s Revealing the Asian American Pacific Islander Boys and Men of Color Field: Living in the Intersections and Invisibility of Race and Gender, which provides an analysis of the field of organizations and leaders who are addressing unique and pressing challenges for Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) boys and men of color, and Can You See Me? School Culture and Climate for California’s AAPI Youth, which explores how youth from marginalized AAPI groups experience significant educational disparities.
Thank you for considering giving to SEARAC on this #GivingTuesday. Together, we can make sure refugee and immigrant voices are not ignored.
In gratitude,
Elaine Sanchez Wilson
Director of Communications and Development
Southeast Asia Resource Action Center
P.S. Remember, if you donate $40, we’ll send you a SEARAC sticker (below); donate $200 and you’ll also get a 2020 Census tote; start your own fundraiser and you’ll get entered into a raffle to win an Apple iPad or equivalent gift card.
