Eva Chen, director of fashion partnerships on Instagram, held a talk on rising anti-Asian racism on Tuesday with civil rights activist and Rise founder Amanda Nguyen, Allure editor-in-chief Michelle Lee and “Birds of Prey” director Cathy Yan.
The four leaders discussed reports of increasing discrimination and violence against members of the Asian-American Pacific Islander community in the past year of the pandemic, which has risen significantly in recent weeks and rekindled national coverage of hate speech. Each woman also shared the anti-Asian bias they have experienced in their own industries, and how they are using this moment to draw attention to long-standing anti-Asian racism.
Nguyen has spent most of a decade working in the civil rights space, helping draft the very first Sexual Assault Survivors Bill of Rights. Still, she says she’s often the only Asian-American person in the room where policy decisions are made, or in the halls of Congress – “even in spaces that say they’re really about diversity,” Nguyen said. “Sometimes our existence seems to be a threat. It certainly was during the pandemic in this community, but it has been that way since long before the pandemic.”
In February, Nguyen posted a video to Instagram that went viral, calling for national media to better discuss the rise of anti-Asian racism and violence in the US.
Yan discussed how it was only when she received critical acclaim for directing the DC blockbuster “Birds of Prey” that a distributor would “take a chance” and release her first feature “Dead Pigs”, a dark comedy set in China. In the film industry, she said she felt pressure to create projects that would appeal to white audiences, and that Asian and Asian American stories are often subject to the stereotype of ‘eternal foreigner’. Things are getting better, she added, noting the backlash Golden Globes organizers faced when they narrowed down the US film “Minari” to the best foreign language film category this year.
The discourse that followed is an encouraging sign that the public is recognizing the stories of immigrants and that underrepresented communities are part of the American experience, Yan said: “Being different is the thing that makes the progress of what it means to be American, will continue to promote in this country. “
Lee added that telling different stories, including about the experience of being Asian in America, is key to fighting stereotypes and racist incidents targeting Asians.
“In the beauty industry – and in publishing in general – it is our responsibility and opportunity to tell those nuanced stories,” said Lee. “Being Asian has a broad spectrum, but often people see us through a narrow lens, which is really dangerous.”
As editor-in-chief of Allure, Lee sees an opportunity to tell those nuanced stories and change what people see as beautiful. At one point, Lee looked through Allure’s catalog and found that in the 28 years and 320 issues leading up to her tenure, there were only two Asian women on the cover of the magazine. Since Lee became editor-in-chief in 2015, he’s hired an all-Asian crew for one monolid makeup shootincluding three Asian models in a 2018 hair issue, and over the years there were eight Asian faces on the cover.
Lee added that Asian representation in the media and in leadership is growing, but “it is still not enough,” stressing that any progress is “not accidental.” Instead, she called on people with decision-making power within their organizations to prioritize inclusion and opportunity for members of marginalized communities.
For her part, Chen is known for her meteoric rise in the beauty and fashion world – at the age of 33, she became one of the youngest editors to run a national American magazine when she became editor-in-chief of Conde Nast’s Lucky magazine in 2013. But she found out that her willingness to speak took time.
“The confidence came quite late for me. I didn’t feel like I had my own strong opinion until I was 30,” said Chen, now 41. She added that her 6-year-old daughter Ren has already learned from school what a protest is. “I feel like young people are more likely to find their voice today, and that they have the strength to have their say. It has taken a long time.”
Nguyen, who has been active in empowering younger Americans to speak up on civil rights issues that are important to them, offered advice to younger generations of activists: “If there are structures that have systematically shut out the Asian-American Pacific Islander community, we will turn to other platforms such as social media to democratize our votes, ”she said. ‘We now have choices. No one is invisible when we demand to be seen. ‘
The Instagram Live Rooms discussion raised more than $ 2,700 for Asian Americans promoting justice and spawned the ongoing work of groups like Apex for Youth, the Innocence Project, Rise, Gold House, and Act to Change.
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