This summer, Asian American Organizing Project (AAOP) welcomes six new Organizing Fellows. The Summer Organizing Fellowship program is a three month program that invites emerging Asian American leaders to learn, develop, and apply their skills to real-world situations. The program integrates civic engagement, community and cultural organizing, and participatory action research.
Carina King is a rising sophomore at the University of Minnesota where she is majoring in biomedical engineering.
Carina first heard about this program through her dad, Greg King, who is one of the community leaders of Filipinx for Immigrant rights and Racial justice in Minnesota (FIRM). The program seemed like something Carina was interested in, and while she had never organized before, she decided to apply to learn those new skills.
“I’ve never been doorknocking or phonebanking before, so this helped me get out of my comfort zone,” Carina says. “Talking to different people was a really good skill that I’ve learned and experienced.”
For Xue Xiong, who is a rising senior at St. Thomas University, these conversations at the doors have been an eye-opening experience.
“This internship has helped sharpen those [logistical and planning] skills and be more intentional thinking about the work I’m doing,” Xue says. “I’m thinking about the work I’m doing for the intentions of positive change in my community, outside of campus work, outside of that community.”
While Xue has had similar experience through his work as a Resident Advisor, the Organizing Fellowship has really helped shape his understanding of social justice and organizing work.
Selena Vue, a rising freshman at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, became interested in organizing work when she joined the Fellowship program through Voices for Racial Justice. That Fellowship program launched a passion for organizing and social justice, which she channeled in AAOP’s inaugural Youth Fellowship in 2016.
“When I first started that youth fellowship, it was when I was in the very peak of interest in social justice and civic engagement work. So like, going into it, I didn’t know what to expect,” Selena shares.
“But thanks to Linda and Chong, who were coordinators at the time, it was really fun and easy-going. We learned a lot of team building skills and leadership skills that helped prepped me going into the Organizing Fellow program.”
A rising senior, Will Wang applied to the Organizing Fellowship to learn more about organizing and civic engagement work in Minnesota.
Will served as the Advocacy Chair at Asian American Student Union at the University of Minnesota. During his time there, he has collaborated with other student organizations such as Black Student Union, and hosted discussions on subjects like antiblackness, instances of oppression, and current events.
Will is interested in many issues, stating that while he does not gravitate towards one particular issue, he understands the importance of issue-based organizing.
“It’s really hard to focus on everything you want to change in the world because it’s impossible to do that so it’s more effective to tackle one issue,” Will says.
Like Will, Mika Takamori was also heavily involved in campus organizing. Mika, who is Japanese American and a rising senior at Carleton, applied to the Fellowship program to learn more about how to carry that campus organizing background in a broader context.
Her campus organizing work centered on facilitating and building programming that would engage students in conversation in how social identities impact their relationships.
Mika says the experiences that she’s gotten through this group, Students Engaging Essential Dialogue (SEED), encouraged her to push herself to find ways to apply those skills in doing community work — especially when there aren’t set boundaries on what and where that community is.
“I’m excited to get a better sense of myself in this context of organizing work whether it’s through where I work best or what issues are specifically most interesting to me,” Mika says.
PaNhia Vang, a rising freshman at Lawrence University and an aspiring lawyer and representative, previously worked as part of the League of Women Voters – MN to register students to vote at her high school.
PaNhia is passionate about many different issues, but she particularly cares about the issues that directly impact communities of color.
“If I do become a lawyer, I want to work in the criminal justice system because that’s where you see a lot of racial and segregation issues coming up,” PaNhia says. “I’m also passionate about the education field because I’ve done research about disaggregated data and the school to prison pipeline. All those issues concern people of color and low income families that’s where I mostly find myself in — issues concerning race and inequality.”
The summer began with socials that encouraged the Fellows to develop relationships with the staff and then, with their community. Throughout the program, Fellows learned about the issues AAOP is organizing around, participate in doorknocks and phonebanks, and even branch out into their own projects as well.
“AAOP always does a good job of accumulating new subjects and new projects for the Fellows,” Selena says. The Fellows plan on facilitating their own Census workshops as well as creating infographics about the citizenship question.
“I’m looking forward to working with my team and creating these workshops,” Xue says. “And meeting our community members, talking with them, and hoping to share more information about the Census.”