When COVID-19 hit, the Asian community, especially the Chinese community, witnessed how the model minority identity has always been a myth. Almost overnight, the racist and sinophobic attitudes soared to new heights. The proximity to whiteness afforded by the model minority myth was instantly revoked, and many of us were left stunned, wondering how the hate had escalated so quickly. What many in the community never fully grasped is the understanding that Canada is a white settler colonial state that was never designed for the success and wellbeing of non-white bodies. The ‘Canadian’ dream was strategically sold to many of our ancestors and parents as a way for the Canadian state to fuel/power its white supremacist, capitalist machine with (im)migrant labour forces.
From the Canadian Pacific Railroads, the Anti-Asian Riot of 1907, denying the entry of Guru Nanak Jahaaz (Komogata Maru), and the Japanese internment camp to the murder of the Afzeel family, the shooting at the Islamic Cultural Centre (Quebec Mosque shooting), COVID-19, Palestine, and anti-immigration sentiments like Bill-C2, this historical and cultural amnesia of Canada as a white settler colonial state is by design. Divide and conquer is a well documented colonial strategy utilized across the world to ensure imperial and colonial powers can dominate a whole society while the people fight amongst each other, and the broader Asian communities are not immune to this tactic within Canada. Our parents and ancestors looked to the west for a ‘better life’ for us, their future generations, but is ‘better’ really better if the privileges, especially privileges unearned as settlers, came at the cost of oppression, violence, and harm towards marginalized communities, including our own?
Pan Asian Liberation started out as a project on anti-Asian racism and hate (which was denied its birth), and since then it has transformed into a call to action for all Asians to liberate ourselves and each other from all forms of oppression. We want to move beyond addressing anti-Asian racism and hate with the “master’s tools,” and instead target the roots of oppressive systems in order to dismantle them and create transformative changes. The hope of Pan Asian Liberation is to mobilize the broader Asian communities across Canada to deepen our understanding of ourselves, our experiences, and our social identities and positionalities; to build solidarity with each other and with other marginalized and oppressed groups; and to ultimately work towards liberating ourselves and everyone else from all violent systemic oppressions.
As my ancestors taught me, chopsticks grouped together are harder to break, and we want every single one of our community members to join us in this work of becoming an endless, collective, unbreakable bundle.
Human Behind
Pan Asian Liberation
Meet the human and voice behind Pan Asian Liberation.
Hi, my name is Tiffany and I am the human behind Pan Asian Liberation. While I may be the main voice behind Pan Asian Liberation, Pan Asian Liberation is really a culmination and product of a lot of commitment, love, joy, grief, and gratitude of my kin, ancestors, teachers, mentors, family, friends, comrades, community, and land, water, and mother nature. Pan Asian Liberation also stems from the combination of an unpublished project and a deep desire for the liberation for my people and beyond.
As a Han-Taiwanese (East Asian) immigrant settler on turtle island, my work deeply reflects my positionalities and lived experiences as a survivor, Mad, disabled, working class, queer femme of colour. My educational background comes from criminology and gender studies, while my ‘career’ background comes from equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging (EDIB) consulting and research. To be clear, for me, EDIB and liberatory work consists of different things, though that is a separate conversation.
Living as an uninvited settler in so-called metro Vancouver, I witnessed how much internalized white supremacy continued to operate within racialized communities, upholding systemic violence and maintaining isolation and division within the broader Asian communities. Those close to me have heard me rant a million times about how those of us, especially those with access to privilege and resources, sustain systemic violence and oppression through their proximity to whiteness. Within the supposed anti-racist and anti-oppressive communities and organizations, I saw a refusal to engage in anti-racist, anti-oppressive work that went beyond boba liberalism and multiculturalism; challenging the status quo required too much sacrifice and discomfort from our communities. And this is a theme that I continue to witness and experience from the communities that I am from.
I also continue to witness the endless pain and suffering that communities go through under these same systems. Harm and violence towards those of us who are migrants, black and brown bodied, queer, trans, disabled, sick, chronically ill, working class, living in poverty, experiencing housing instability or unhoused, escaping genocide/persecution/war/climate disasters/authoritarian regimes, etc. At the same time, much of this blame and shame is thrown onto each other and not at the systems that caused these outcomes in the first place. I recognize that most of us are too burnt out from surviving to be able to do the work of dismantling these systems, AND, if we do not organize, these impossible living conditions will continue for our generations and beyond.
When the opportunity to refurbish something that I spent months working on into something that I had full creative control over, I wanted to seize the opportunity to write this love letter to my people. I want to create a space for calling in (and at times, calling out) our communities on our complicity in harm, to cultivate our capacities for change and mobilization, and to dive deep and transform the wounds that we have been carrying for generations. I wish for the healing and liberation for all people, and recognize that one of the best ways to leverage the unearned privileges and influences I hold as a settler is to organize with my communities to come along with me in this process.
I commit to working towards building a world where every single person is liberated from all these systems of violence and oppression, where all of our necessities are met without conditions, and where we can build communities based on reciprocal desires for freedom, self determination, and care for the collective.
With gratitude,
Tiffany
Pan Asian Liberation 