#stopapihate

If you didn’t know, I’m Chinese American and I’m proud of that. My father was a “Paper Son” and immigrated to this country in 1912. I had tried the path of assimilation and trying to be like everyone else in my youth. As I’ve grown up, I’ve learned to be proud of my Asian Pacific Islander heritage.

Stop AAPI Hate reported 6,603 incident reports, as large as a 223% increase in New York from 2020. The most horrific of these is the 2021 Atlanta spa shootings.

Being Chinese American and of course advocating for Engaging Virtual Meetings (online harassment makes up 7.3% of all incidents), I stand again this type of hate and protecting the safety of all people.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

I’ll give you my 3 easiest tips:

1. TURN ON YOUR CAMERA – If you can safely do it, turn on your camera and share with the proper people. 2020 showed us the power of a teenager turning on her camera.
2. REPORT – https://stopaapihate.org/ has the largest database now online of Asian Pacific Islander hate crimes, now available to be input into 10 languages.
3. TAKE BYSTANDER INTERVENTION TRAINING – Hollaback! holds one of the top bystander trainings to show you exactly what to do. Don’t be like these apartment building staff who closed the door and did NOT help this elderly Asian woman.

Meanwhile, on the positive side, do what you can to celebrate Asian Pacific Islander Heritage during this designated month of May. Did you know over 50 countries and over 100 languages are included in the Asian Pacific Islander ethnic group? For the past 5 years, I have volunteered, MC’ed and produced the Seattle Center Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Month Celebration. This program has over 2 hours of live and recorded content including over 25 live speakers. Here are the 3 things I learned in producing this virtual show:

1) Decide on what you want, THEN choose your technology.

The end destination was Facebook LIVE. We wanted to see 2 or more people on Facebook LIVE. We did attempt to move to restream.io as there would be much more control for Facebook LIVE, but with 25 live speakers, we did NOT want to have to train them on how to get into restream.io. We decided on Zoom and used turning Cameras ON and Cameras OFF to control who was seen on screen.

2) Rehearse EVERYTHING!

By establishing a standard, we were able to rehearse with speakers. They knew they came in with cameras off and mics off. They would be moved to a “Green Room” breakout room where they could check their audio and video. They were given clear instructions to unmute before they come on and to turn their camera on when the MC asks for them.

In addition, we were using Zoom’s Share Screen Advanced Video player (best quality for sharing videos in Zoom!) and 2 late submitted videos were not in a playable format, they were detected and converted the morning before the program.

3) Get everyone into the right roles!

I was supposed to Co-MC and in the first rehearsal, our producer attempted to share a video using Zoom’s advanced share screen tool and her computer was unable to share the video.

We decided that I should change roles from Co-MC to producer as my computer has the technical ability and I have spent the last year producing.

Marci Nakano took the speaker co-producer role by admitting speakers, moving them immediately to the “Green Room” breakout room, checking their audio and video and moving them back to the main room when they were ready.

Props to Nella Kwan who went from co-MC to full MC on this program. She was ready for every transition and every presenter and every pronunciation of names!

THE RESULT

A very smooth livestream and a program we could be proud of. 73 reactions, 138 shares, 171 comments, 2,500 views, and 7,881 people reached (and still growing!) with no money spent on marketing. If you’d like to help, click this link and SHARE the stream. https://www.facebook.com/apiheritage/videos/294543675606342