Celebrating AAPI Heritage Month with Strava’s Pan-Asians ERG Leads
AAPI Heritage Month (May) has begun and our celebrations are in full swing here at Strava and all over the US.
The Strava Pan-Asians Affinity Group was formed three years ago as a safe space for any employee that identifies as Asian. Recently, the Pan-Asians group, along with a few others, was formalized into an Employee Resource Group (ERG). “Pan-Asians” refers to all of Asia. We often find that non-east Asians are excluded from current mental models when referring to “Asian” in general. So by explicitly calling our group Pan-Asians we acknowledge that we are a group for all Asian cultures. We aim to be a supportive, inclusive, and anti-racist space where we can share our experiences and celebrate our cultures.
The theme of our 2023 AAPI Heritage Month celebration is Beyond the Plate. Many ethnic groups within the Pan-Asian diaspora use cuisine to connect, celebrate, and share their cultures with each other and those outside of their group. For those of us in the Pan-Asian diaspora, food is one of the first topics of discussion that comes up — how we love certain dishes, how a plate of cut fruit was a way for our immigrant parents to show us love, how we all had an upsetting “stinky lunch box moment” in elementary school, and more. For those who don’t identify as Asian, eating ethnic cuisines is often a way to experience and support different cultures.
However, when food is the only thing you consume about a culture, you limit that culture’s narrative.
This month, we’re taking a moment to explore the complexity of Pan-Asian cuisine and all that it represents in order to expand our narratives, history, and understanding of ourselves, and we welcome you along for the journey. We hope to educate, inform, and celebrate together as Strava.
Without further ado, let’s hear from the folks leading the ERG:
Name: Lindsay Lee
Title: Senior Product Manager
How long have you been at Strava? 2.5 years! Since November 2020.
Telling my Pan-Asians ERG Story: Reading about Strava’s earnest commitment to anti-racism was an incredibly important factor when I considered working here. Upon joining I was grateful to see that Strava not only talked the talk, but walked the walk. The Pan-Asians ERG was in its early stages but offered me another opportunity to bring my whole self to work, bonding with my teammates over our shared experiences (both the joyful ones and the hardening ones). Being an unapologetically outspoken Asian-American woman in leadership is not a narrative that was celebrated as I was growing up and it’s been such a gift to have the opportunity to lean into the parts of me that I often shied away from. My hope is to create a meaningful space for learning, self-advocacy, and discussion especially in the world of sport where Asian-Americans are traditionally underrepresented.
Inspiring quote: There’s a sort of old-fashioned quote that often comes up for me when working on a tough project and comes to mind when thinking through potential programming for the ERG. Often we think that leadership is having the right answer to every question, the perfect solution to every problem. Leading with curiosity about what you hear and see, prioritizing a desire to understand, and removing your own bias when assessing situations will ultimately lead you to better solutions:
“If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.” — Albert Einstein
Name: Lulu Ye
Title: Senior Engineer II
How long have you been at Strava? 4.5 years, Since November 2018
Telling my Pan-Asians ERG Story:
When Strava made its commitment to anti-racism after the George Floyd protests, the cultural conversations within and outside were geared toward educating white audiences that didn’t fit the experiences of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. I felt left out of the conversation, especially at a company where almost 20% of its employees identified as AAPI, and wanted a space where we could talk about the impacts of white supremacy and colonialism, as well as our own internalized and externalized racism. I needed a space to be unapologetically myself after downplaying my Chinese heritage to fit in and be seen and celebrated. Strava may be a sports company but we are more than our personal records.
Inspiring Quote:
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” Antoine de St. Exupery
Vision, dreams, and imagination are essential to building a better world.
What are The Pan-Asians Co-Leads most looking forward to in 2023?
We’ve spent the last few years building a strong basis as an Affinity Group but as we progress toward being a full-fledged ERG, we want to expand our programming in an intentional way. We’re going to be leaning a lot more into Professional Development workshops that leverage our internal community to foster meaningful learning. We’re really looking forward to trying out some new things and advancing the skill set of our ERG!
Written by: Lindsay Lee and Lulu Ye
Photos by: So Yem
