Featuring Ed Nakawatase & Marion Kwan, activists with the Civil Rights Movement and Kabzuag Vaj, organizer with Freedom Inc in Wisconsin

 

Moderator: Kelly N. Fong, Professor, UCLA Asian American Studies Department

Friday, November 20, 2020
11am-12:30pm

Speakers:

 

Ed Nakawatase worked with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Atlanta, Georgia from 1963-64. He then went on to work with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) . He joined their Third World Coalition national staff and became AFSC's National Representative for Native American Affairs, a position he held for 31 years. He is currently on the boards for Asian Americans United, and the Folk-Arts Cultural Treasures Charter School both in Philadelphia, and Seabrook Educational and Cultural Center in New Jersey.

 

Quote by Ed Nakawatase: "Racism remains deeply rooted in American society...I am encouraged by the anti-racist movement that now includes a full spectrum of people of color, as well as an unprecedented number of white people who now see themselves as antiracists in the struggle. I believe that Black Lives Matter is a continuation of the civil rights movement and applaud its militancy and energy. They seem much like SNCC in that way. They most certainly are part of the long civil rights movement."

 

Marion Kwan was active with the Delta Ministry from 1965-66 in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. She returned home to the San Francisco Bay area where she worked in jobs and roles involved with grass-roots organizing, social protests and education such as Chinatown YWCA Young Adult Program Director, Peace Caravan with the American Friends Service Committee, social work with International Rescue Committee in Hong Kong, anti-Vietnam War protests, academic counselor for low-income students at City College of San Francisco, trainer for Community Boards, Inc. a dispute-resolution neighborhoods program; consultant for Stanford Intercultural Communications Institute. She is now retired and is an active member of San Francisco Bay Area Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement.

 

Quote by Marion Kwan: "There is hope. For a while I thought the "Movement" stopped altogether, but the Movement is "moving again." I saw it on the day after President Trump's Inauguration in January 2017, in the Million Women March in Oakland - where I couldn't believe that I saw a young Asian father with his wife and baby in tow in a baby stroller, among the crowd of multiracial, multi-generational, including young men and their girlfriends, and LGBTQ demonstrators. We also now have spotlights on younger people throughout the world (so much more aware of the deterioration of our planet than I ever was in my generation) - the Sunrise Movement (youth for climate change) and March for Our Lives (student led against gun violence). Are Asian Americans ready for building connections and becoming more openly present in society?"

 

Kabzuag Vaj is the Founder and co-Executive Director of Freedom Inc based in Madison, Wisconsin. She is a strong believer that those who are most deeply impacted must be at the forefront of the movement. Those who are most impacted must have opportunities and resources to advocate for themselves and tell their own stories. In the past 20 years, Kabzuag has spent her life working to build collective power and social change within Southeast Asian and Black communities. She was recognized as a Champion of Change at the White House during Domestic Violence Awareness month in 2011, and was named one of "20 Women of Color in Politics to Watch in 2020" by She the People. Her first love is the movement.

Organized by UCLA Asian American Studies Center & Department; East Wind ezine

Supported by UCLA Association of Hmong Students, United Khmer Students, Vietnamese Student Union, Asian Pacific Coalition, Pacific Ties Newsmagazine

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