I sat in a Zoom room with 30 other people—most, I didn’t know, and all, I had never actually met in-person. It was our first weekend of LEX—APIENC’s API Queer Justice Leadership Exchange—and I felt a mix of anxiety and excitement. Just over a year ago, I first joined APIENC. At the time, the COVID-19
My name is Leo Shanti Hegde, I use he and they pronouns, and I am excited to share that I’m APIENC’s newest community organizer! I’m a second-generation Indian American who grew up in Edison, New Jersey. I attended college on the ancestral lands of the Cherokee and Shawnee people in Nashville, Tennessee, and since 2019
Dear APIENC community, This year, our community has faced crisis after crisis. We’ve been targeted by white supremacist attacks, denied access to gender-affirming healthcare, isolated through the COVID-19 pandemic and so much more. So many trans and queer APIs have been made to feel helpless. While many of us may be feeling low on charge,
“What would you do in a world where compassion, hope, or liberation doesn’t exist?How would you teach someone about it?” This prompt was etched into my memories from a creative writing opportunity in 2018. Looking back, I would have explained the work and community of APIENC. From the past six years of being in the
Dear Community, At one of my first supervisions as a Summer Intern in 2013, Monna turned to me and asked, “why does it feel so difficult for you to ask for help?” I stared at her blankly, the grey partitions of the cubicle closing in on me. Why does it feel difficult?! How could asking
Dear APIENC Community, Since 2017, APIENC has been guided by a set of priorities and directions crafted by APIENC staff in order to help the organization make decisions about where to focus our power and grow our work. In the time after the 2016 election, this framework felt critical—there were so many issues to focus
It’s December 2019, and I’m in a cabin in Guerneville at my first Core Retreat as one of the newest members of APIENC Core. I’m super excited to be spending a weekend with such cool people, but I’m also a little nervous. If I listen closely, there are voices in my head saying, I don’t
