Presenters: Seung-Hwan Shin, Sunny Yang

This workshop is intended to help advocates at the University of Pittsburgh understand the specific issues facing the AAPI and Asian communities in Pittsburgh and the country. It consists of a presentation followed by discussion and then a question/answer session. The primary speaker is Sunny Yang (Attorney, an officer and former board member of Asian Pacific American Bar Association of Pennsylvania and a member and former Chair of the Asian Attorneys Committee of the Allegheny County Bar Association), who will be joined by Seung-Hwan Shin (Lecturer in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures) and Paris Yamamoto (Pitt undergraduate and former president of the campus Japanese Students Association).

We will focus on the recent surge of hate crimes against Asian American and Pacific Islander and Asian community members as an introduction to the wider topic of the historical, political, and social underpinnings of anti-Asian racism in America and the lasting impact on our AAPI and other diverse communities. With the goal to broaden insights and encourage positive change across our communities, we will address specifically the following issues:

• Our nation’s history of racism and legalized discrimination against people of Asian descent.
• Stereotypes about the AAPI community, including the “model minority,” the “perpetual foreigner,” and the bamboo ceiling for AAPI members at work.
• The meaning of claiming a voice and paving ways for others in our communities.

Register

If you require an accommodation to participate in this event, please contact the Office for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at diversity@pitt.edu by July 21

This workshop is a part of the 2021 Diversity Forum.