Image Description: A large group selfie from the NQAPIA Leadership Summit. 30 people strike a pose for the photo.

5 Highlights from APIENC’s Summer

September 15, 2016 — By sammie

This summer, Team APIENC was busy. During the past few months, our team has been working hard to support summer interns, march in the streets, launch new projects, highlight community artists, and build a thriving LGBTQ API community. Here’s a recap of some of the most amazing things we have been able to do:

1. Graduated our 7th class of summer interns!

Image Description: Five APIENC Summer Interns sit on steps in a stairwell. They all make a range of silly, smiling, and serious faces to the camera.
Image Description: Five APIENC Summer Interns sit on steps in a stairwell. They all make a range of silly, smiling, and serious faces to the camera.

This summer, we welcomed Anna, Connie, Jo, Maria, and Nancy to the APIENC family. Our interns worked on personal projects that engaged the LGBTQ API community in arts, curriculum building, resource sharing, and trans justice. Due to their efforts, we were able to launch the Artist Collective, raise over $17,000 on GiveOUT Day, complete a successful Leadership Exchange, and give the first-iteration of our Trans Justice curriculum! At the end of the internship, they shared some of their favorite moments:

“Receiving the LEX trainings in the summer, with a group of other dope API people, gave me an opportunity to practice all the skills that we learned. I think often of how movement building takes relationship building and these skills force me to reflect on what my values and beliefs are, and how much I really value and believe them. I strive to relate to others and move in the world in a way that’s true to that. It’s so easy to overlook the fact that movement building takes people, people that know each other and trust each other!” – Nancy Truong

“[One of my memorable moments was] visiting Canyon Sam and having the opportunity to read their work and hear about their experiences in the community! Canyon was concerned that their work from before 1985 is no longer relevant to today’s students, but after reading through a few stories and articles, I was surprised at how relevant, necessary, and impactful I found Canyon’s work. Stories about assault, gun control, and domestic violence within API communities are not easy to come by even today. This experience exposed me to some of the amazing work that members of our community, like Canyon Sam, produce while also proving just how much more work still needs to be done decades later.” – Connie Hsu

2. Convened and Marched with over 100 People in the API Contingent at Trans March

Image Description: A large group of LGBTQ API people and allies pose with banners, flags, and signs at the 2016 Trans March. They have raised fists, and are looking fiercely at the camera.
Image Description: A large group of LGBTQ API people and allies pose with banners, flags, and signs at the 2016 Trans March. They have raised fists, and are looking fiercely at the camera.

As part of SF Pride Weekend, we organized our API community to march in the annual Trans March. Working with Gabriela San Francisco and the Chinese Progressive Association, we made signs, trained community safety leads, and chanted throughout the streets for safety, jobs, and justice for ALL trans and gender nonconforming people. Check out some of the photos here.

3. Premiered our NEW Trans Justice Curriculum at a National Leadership Summit

Image Description: A large group selfie from the NQAPIA Leadership Summit. 30 people strike a pose for the photo.
Image Description: A large group selfie from the NQAPIA Leadership Summit. 30 people strike a pose for the photo.

In August, our team packed up our bags and went to New Orleans for the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance’s Leadership Summit! At the summit we co-facilitated the Trans Justice pre-convening, which featured a training for trainers on our brand-new Trans 101 curriculum, made specifically for API communities. We are currently in the process of refining the curriculum further, and will be holding a Bay Area Training for Trainers in early December. Read more information about the initiative here.

4. Put up an Exhibit of artwork from LGBTQ API Artists at the OACC

Image Description: Artwork from the Artist Collective Exhibit hangs on the wall. Four prints are arranged on two black backgrounds.
Image Description: Artwork from the Artist Collective Exhibit hangs on the wall. Four prints are arranged on two black backgrounds.

Thanks to the work of our volunteer-led artist collective, APIENC currently has an exhibit of artwork from LGBTQ API artists up at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center! The free exhibit features prints, watercolor, photographs, and more inspired by the lives and experiences of LGBTQ API people. Check out the exhibit in Oakland Chinatown before September 30th!

5. Hosted 4 Hands-on Arts and Archiving Workshops for the Resilience Archives

Image Description: A workshop facilitator sits in a chair, being lit by a large standing light to their right. The lighting is dramatic, and casts a long shadow.
Image Description: A workshop facilitator sits in a chair, being lit by a large standing light to their right. The lighting is dramatic, and casts a long shadow.

The Resilience Archives, a collaboration between the Visibility Project and APIENC, started this summer through a series of arts and archiving workshops. Participants engaged in hands-on trainings to learn how to archive, tell stories, and make films. Although the series of workshops is over, there are still tons of photos, fliers, and audio clips to scan, edit, and curate—all we we work towards a LGBTQ API tour and digital archive of the San Francisco Bay Area!