Jasmin is outdoors at a community garden holding a box of dead plant material while smiling toward the camera.
Jasmin is outdoors at a community garden holding a box of dead plant material while smiling toward the camera.
by Jasmin Hoo | November 12, 2018

I’m transforming into a more powerful version of myself. Will you join me?

Image description: Jasmin is smiling and looking up.
Image description: Jasmin is smiling and looking up.

This is Jasmin Hoo, the new Community Organizer at APIENC. In this past month since I’ve started, I’ve been asked to reimagine what community care and accountability look like, stretched to practice new organizing skills, and encouraged to confront my own personal shadows that are standing between me and liberation. Everyday I literally feel myself transforming into a more powerful version of who I am. I am honored to be learning, growing and building with all of you, our APIENC community. APIENC is exactly the kind of community I needed when I first moved to San Francisco in 2005 and was exploring my own queer identity. Back then, I didn’t have any API queer and trans friends and mentors to safely explore and affirm my identity with. I didn’t have the opportunity to connect my personal liberation with the liberation of all. I didn’t have APIENC. Alone, it took longer for me to find myself, build my community, and feel empowered enough to be a leader in this work. Now, as the Community Organizer for APIENC, I am grateful to play a part in cultivating an intergenerational community of healing, growth and transformation.

This past year, APIENC has grown tremendously. From our 9th cohort of Summer Organizers, to our 300+ person Trans March contingent, to the launch of our Dragon Fruit Walking Tour—our community is abundant. Yet, political violence, xenophobia, gentrification, and transphobia are still hurting and isolating our people all the time. Now is the time for us to continue to rise up and grow new futures.

Jasmin is outdoors at a community garden holding a box of dead plant material while smiling toward the camera.
Jasmin is outdoors at a community garden holding a box of dead plant material while smiling toward the camera.

This is the final stretch of our annual fall fundraising campaign “grow: ourselves, our communities, our movements.” By Sunday, Nov. 18th, we need to raise $15,000 to ensure that our work continues. I am reaching out to you, our community, to ensure that APIENC can continue to be home for trans, non-binary, and queer API people to fight for the liberation of all. Will you support me by donating $30 by Nov. 18th, to grow ourselves, our communities, and our movements?

Here’s how you can grow with us:

Please also RSVP to our Annual Volunteer Appreciation Brunch happening Sunday, November 18th in Oakland!

Love and solidarity,
Jasmin Hoo
APIENC Community Organizer