The API Jam is here to blow open ideas of what Asian family could look like
Since two teenagers founded YES! in 1990, over 100 week-long Jams, or gatherings, have taken place all over the world, building lasting friendships and encouraging important conversations. There have been Jams for pretty much everything: Law and Social Change, Wellness and Healing, and Educational Transformation among those currently available.
And for only the second year, there’s an Asian & Pacific Islander Jam. The API Jam will take place on August 6–11, 2019 in Point Bonita, California. (Final applications are due July 1, 2019.)
We interviewed LiZhen Wang (they/them and she/her), one of this year’s facilitator-participants, to hear more about what this program strives to do for the API community.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
So, what is a Jam?
The Jam is a retreat that has been organized for a few decades now, and it creates a space where folks can come together and learn tools for organizing, developing a sense of self and identity, and discovering a family that one may not have known was possible. What’s great about it is that most of the participants don’t know each other, and then throughout the week, we get to learn a different set of rules, and a different way of being together, and come out of it deeply enriched in so many ways.
There are Jams that are organized for many different ideas or geographical areas, such as a Middle Eastern cultures Jam or an Indie Arts Jam, or one that was for Educators for Social Justice.
This year is the second annual API Jam. Why do we need a Jam for Asian & Pacific Islander Americans?
There were twenty-seven of us in attendance at last year’s Jam, and from the testimonials of the participants, so, so many of us talked about discovering and building a sense of family that we didn’t know was possible.
It’s really powerful to be in a space with people who in some way actually look like they can be my family. It’s that chosen family feeling — certainly not everybody, because it’s a pan-Asian/PI space, but just being in a room with so many people who could be my family and getting to relate from a heart-centered, very honest, loving, and affectionate kind of space, really blew open our ideas of what Asian family could look like.
People would say, “I’ve found new brothers, sisters, aunts, mothers, cousins whom I’m now fighting for in my work.” That’s one of the meaningful and tender things that came out of last year’s Jam.
I’ve worked with social justice most of my life, and I currently work in Buddhist activism, and a lot of what we do is racial justice work, specific to the Americanized Buddhist experience and the erasure of Asian Americans in Buddhist practice in the US. What I’ve found, and what so many of my comrades talk about in racial justice space, is so often that, in order to be a good ally, there is a deprioritization of our stories and our truths as Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. We then wonder where there’s space for us to assert our experiences and truths, and to ask for allyship and solidarity back.
The API Jam is an especially beautiful place to say, “Okay, we need a caucus, so we can have space to attend to each other and our experiences,” and to do so safely, without constantly wondering if we are taking up too much space, in light of other forms of racism that might be more urgent right now. Having that solid caucus place has given me courage to seek solidarity from my other family of color: to be more honest and real with, for example, Black and Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) when I show up for them, and to ask for solidarity back.
I noticed that your organization both uses the initialism “API” and acknowledges that it is a contested term of use. Could you explain the thought process behind it?
That’s a good question. I have an ethnic studies background, and so I know that when we hold a caucus space like this, we have to acknowledge the complexity of “buying in” to this social construct, to acknowledge that “Asian and Pacific Islander” is an identity that was imposed upon our communities.
But the impact is real; the consequences of being marked like that, and gathering with other people who have been marked and identified with me, are that together, we can explore how we’ve been treated and how we want to re-think the label for ourselves and use it to create the world as we want it to be. So even though the “API” label is contested territory, it is still useful.
I think our intention, overall, is to keep the invitation as broad as possible. We have been put together in this way, and there’s a certain kind of spell that is cast when the State sees us as one group. But we also acknowledge that our experiences and stories are so different, like Southeast Asian folks came to this country in a very different way from Indian, Taiwanese, or Hong Kong-ese folks came post-1965.
We want to keep the invitation open so that we can recruit a broad cohort of people and then, among ourselves, do our due diligence to question and explore what it really means to have been lumped together despite our different histories; how does that feel, and what are the tensions among us? We create a space to be in dialogue together.
Why should people be excited about API Jam?
Well, I can tell you a couple of things that I hope will resonate with you or others. First, I’ll say that the Jam is always held in a beautiful nature space, so it’s just a really lovely place to unwind for a while. We’re right on the beach near Sausalito this year!
I would also say that what happens at the Jam is such an interesting combination of learning some concrete tools for, for instance, how to navigate interpersonal conflict in families, workplaces, and movement spaces. And we learned tools for how to face the fears that hold us back from being our brightest and biggest selves. There was a workshop we had last year called “Facing the Inner Critic”, and it ran the gamut from learning concrete skills to circle sharing.
And then we have, like… hella good play. We would play! We would offer tarot to each other, we had an entire Bollywood dance number, and just playing games.
I would say that if you’re in any movement space and feeling kind of tired or overwhelmed by only having an intellectual connection with others in movement spaces, if you’re seeking greater integrity and heart-centered connection, if you’re passionate about cultivating shared values with other API folks, then this is the space for you. If you want to make space to really witness one another, as we get the work done, then this is the space for you.
That’s how I knew the Jam was for me, actually. One thing that I have felt before in social justice spaces is a lot of judgment, and constant evaluation. And the criticism is important for the work. But I was seeking more emotional compassion and spiritual groundedness, which I can get from the Jam.
That said, is the API Jam meant for social justice organizing? Are you involved in politics in any way?
Almost every facilitant of the Jam is involved in social justice in some way, either involved in political work, or as a politically involved healer, entrepreneur, etc. Everyone is coming from somewhere on the spectrum of the social justice lens.
The gathering itself is not preparing for direct action of any kind, but it’s more like being a place for us to deepen and do reflection on ourselves and our work. But a lot of it is indeed with the acknowledgment that the social justice work is where a lot of us are coming from and what we want to process with one another as Asian and Pacific Islanders.
For example, we discuss what kind of images of ourselves as API folks are we perpetuating in social justice spaces, and how do we want to claim our own storytelling? How do we want to show up as allies and also carve out spaces for ourselves in our own communities? How do we want to address inter-Asian dynamics, ageism, and classism in our own communities?
Are there any underrepresented groups that you hope will really show up this year?
One of the communities that we wanted to center on this year for outreach is elders. We really want to make this an intergenerational space, and we’re already good on people in their twenties, thirties, and forties. But my mom is going to the Jam this year with me, and I’m really excited about that!
Another one of our directions is that we want to explore how we can make Jam by and for Pacific Islanders. How do we make these spaces genuinely open to those communities, without tokenizing them? It means having Pacific Islanders as facilitants, as leaders, not just getting them to show up and stopping there.
One last question: who is your current favorite Asian American creative?
Oh, my god! Okay… there’s two. I cannot help but tell you that I am in love with Ali Wong! Like, I genuinely feel in love with her! I don’t even know her, but I’m like, yes, thank you for speaking for me! I just really enjoy her potty mouth being all over the place.
And then the other person I want to celebrate is Mayumi Oda, who creates such beautiful, luscious paintings of Asian women as goddesses. Like, juicy, full-bodied Asian women floating on a lotus leaf, you know? Or holding a broomstick and sweeping up in the sky. Check her out!
Final applications for this year’s API Jam are due on July 1, 2019.
