Advocating for the Community

You have become very vocal on the issue of anti-Asian violence and anti-Asian discrimination in both advertising, your field of work, and in society as a whole. So, your commitment to diversity is obviously very important to you. How do you put that commitment into action in your organization?

Continue to advocate for people that look like me and are underrepresented. I think you put that into action by the decision making. Let’s just talk about it on a microscale. We were talking about sitting in a meeting—sitting in a meeting with a bunch of people. How are you advocating for people who are of color, that may not be speaking that they need to speak up? That’s the easiest decision you can make. How are you adding them onto email chains that they were historically left off of? How are you adding them into meetings that they were historically left off of? That’s the first step to visibility.

And I do think the more that leaders understand that, that if you leave someone off, think about who you left off. Think about what they’re struggling with. Think about what their visibility looks like. If you add them in, what kind of changes that can affect? That’s the first thing. On a bigger scale, though, how are we creating programs to support minority communities, not just on convenient holidays? It’s fantastic that you want to celebrate Lunar New Year? Great. I’m Filipino, I don’t celebrate Lunar New Year. How are you creating programs to support the Asian-American community in May, literally just in May? Why aren’t you celebrating us in August or September? It’s like, so how are we creating long-term commitments to these communities, the Asian American community, the black community, the Latinx community, etc, that are past holidays? Anybody could do that.

They pass out a sampling of food, right? They put out some ethnic food, it’s like, “Okay, we’re celebrating you guys. We see and hear you.”

Yeah, it’s like I’m not lumpia. That's not who I am. First of all, I consider myself American. And so I think the thing is, how are you making these long-term commitments? Not just on a topical level. Hey, we put a bunch of Asian people in some ads, and we call that a day and we made this little spot. No, how are you providing assistance to my community who is actually disproportionately affected by xenophobia, specifically, in the pandemic? How are you supporting the community under attack right now, because of that xenophobia and because of a range of different things? Right now, as we speak, the community that’s literally right next to our office. And so it’s advocating for long-term programs and commitments that sustain way past May, way past Lunar New Year.