Not everyone knows what exactly I have been up to since Covid. Sooooo…this video puts it in a nutshell. All of my weekdays are spent on creating communities where Asians Americans can be safe walking in public and respected at work. – Why was I nominated for Advocate of the Year?
– What is the cause? – Why did I receive the Humanitarian Award?
It is most important to draw attention to the 𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝘀𝗶𝗮𝗻 𝗔𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗻𝘀. This topic is life and death for Asians in America and we need to include them in diversity conversations. Asians are people of color and are discriminated against even if you don’t hear about it. This is the transcript. My name is Jolene Jang from Seattle. I am a Japanese, Chinese, Swedish American. I am grateful to be nominated for Community Advocate of the Year. I advocate for Asian Inclusion at a time when it is desperately needed. I educate professionals to be culturally competent. The last 2 years I have spent a lot of time working in meetings and hospitality industry after seeing the horrific impact of hate caused by leaders using racial slurs to describe Covid. • 1/5 Asians experienced a hate incident this last year
• Everyday single day Asians are violently attacked
• Think about how this impacts your Asian Employees and customers.
Our industry is still largely quiet. We need to speak up. BIGGEST ACHIEVEMENT I wish I could say my biggest achievement was solving racism in one event . What I have done is… I set up infrastructure and have taught professionals how to be Asian Inclusive and to create a safe place where Asians can feel like they belong. I have created 2 Facebook groups and with these 500 members we are pro-active informing our networks about Asian American culture. I have done:
• 150 interviews and podcasts
• 124 meetings and presentations
And with the help of #APIEVENTPROFS we are able to take all these resources and are sharing them with the event industry. We have put on events sponsored by meetings today and engaging virtual meetings. When the Asian Pacific Islander voice was left out from a diversity article and when API presenters were not included in the conference, Joan Eisenstodt, inquired and got us an article with Skift and a meeting with IMEX so they can include Asians. What motivates me, even more, is when people take my education and incorporate Asian inclusion into other parts of their personal lives. Like Jim, NY Professor Jim, teaching communication and leadership encouraging students to share their culture and had his students talk about #StopAsianHate as part of their lesson. And he pronounces names correctly. Today there is an Asian American Heritage Girl Scout Badge that can reach 20 million girl scouts worldwide because of my presentation. This is what I am excited about. In the next 10 years I envision the Event and hospitality professionals saying Our event staff and all of our vendors have been trained in Asian Inclusion and it was the best investment. We are rapidly expanding our customer base, and consistently get 5-star reviews because our events are culturally rich. It will happen when more organizations like PCMA actively support Asian inclusion and groups like APIEVENTPROFS.