Julie McConnell sits down with Julia Ha and Tammy Tran from Project Yellow Dress (PYD) to talk about how underrepresented communities are gaining visibility through self-expressed artistic mediums. We start the podcast getting to know the two PYD founders who talk about their family history (fun fact: they are second cousins). Their family experienced a double diaspora having to escape China and Vietnam because of warfare, and as a result, have traveled to many different countries in search of a new place to call home.
We move on to hear about the lightbulb moment when a children's book on the Holocaust inspired them to start PYD. Recognizing how taking ownership of one's history is so crucial for communities who are often overlooked in history textbooks and mainstream media, they created PYD as a platform to encourage silenced individuals to share their stories through whatever medium they desire. This is a community of people who are flipping the script as they do advocacy in their own way. Yes, Asians can be artists. They can be whoever they want to be. It is so important for them to be able to feel like the protagonist of their story, to celebrate the fact that they are a refugee or a child of a refugee, especially in today's political climate.
We close out the podcast with takeaways that touch upon an increasing need for ethnic studies courses. Because learning about people’s history helps us understand one another and ourselves, it is so important to recognize how and where ethnic studies is being taught and improve on that. "Know history, know self. No history, no self."
Project Yellow Dress is a storytelling platform that is dedicated to sharing and highlighting the histories, experiences, and voices of the Southeast Asian diaspora.
Website: www.projectyellowdress.com
Facebook: @projectyellowdress
Instagram: @projectyellowdress
Twitter: @projyellowdress
JULIA HA is a Chinese-Vietnamese American from the San Francisco Bay Area, the daughter of Vietnamese Boat People refugees who immigrated to the U.S. in the early 1980s. She received her B.A. from University of California, San Diego (UCSD), where she majored in History: War, Revolution, and Social Change with a special emphasis in Genocide Studies, and graduated with a M.A. Ed. degree in Equity and Social Justice in Education with a focus on Genocide Education from San Francisco State University (SFSU). She currently works as an EOP Advisor at San Francisco State University.
Facebook: @juliathucha
Instagram: @jbwahaha
TAMMY TRAN, one of the co-founders of Project Yellow Dress, is a Chinese-Vietnamese American whose parents are Vietnamese Boat Refugees. Through Project Yellow Dress, she’s been able to reconnect with her family's history and get to know more about her parents and community. Aside from Project Yellow Dress, she studied Fine Arts & Art History during both her undergraduate and graduate careers and is currently getting an MILIS in Cultural Heritage Management. She truly enjoys seeking out new narratives that inanimate objects can tell us and believes that it's so important to find ways to preserve people's voices through visual representations.
Summary by Joanne NguyenEpisode 49: SEARAC: Southeast Asian American Solidarity Toolkit: A Guide to Resisting Deportations and Detentions from the #ReleaseMN8 Campaign
Episode 48: Sharbari Ahmed: Breaking South Asian Stereotypes Across Genres
Episode 47: Jumakae: On Healing and Transformative Justice
Episode 46: Reappropriation through Asian American Feminism
Episode 45: Southeast Asian Podcasters Unite on Class and Education
Episode 44: More on the Asian Diaspora: What's Happening in Australia?
Episode 43: I'm Adulting!: On Personal Finance & Self Care
Episode 42: Level Up!: A Walkthrough on Our History with Gaming
Episode 41: Overcoming Anxiety, Stress, and Trauma with Calm Clarity
Episode 40: Listen to Your Body: The Appendix Collective
Episode 39: Empowering Voices: AAPI Power Through Media
Episode 38: Love Your Work as Much as Kat Loves L.A.
Episode 37: I'd Rather be a Yellow Ranger than a Model Minority
Episode 36: We're Back and Hmong Women are Taking on the World
Episode 35: Open Hiatus
Episode 34: The Power of Digital Media (and How to Use it to Disrupt White Spaces)
Episode 33: Mental Health: Being There for Loved Ones with Depression
Episode 32: How to Blend into the White World as an Asian Woman
Episode 31: From Chinese Restaurant to Corporate America: What it Means to Have Grit
Episode 30: Japanese Womanhood and Feminism
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