Well, when I recorded this interview with my friend Sharyl we lived in a very different world. We weren’t thinking about global pandemics, social distancing, or using zoom quite as much as we are now. Many of us are sheltering in place and facing restrictions to help slow the spread of this new virus. We are, well at least I am, at times anxious and fearful about what this means for me and the world and then other times overwhelmed by the beauty, solidarity, selflessness, creativity, and service that I see. The anxiety and fear has produced very real acts of racism and xenophobia towards Asian-Americans. The President has insisted on calling this “The Chinese Virus”. I won’t speculate about why he has done that, but I will point out that there are very real world consequences for using this kind of language and it is irresponsible when there is clear, neutral language used by most scientists and health professionals. You can go to twitter and search the hashtag #iamnotavirus and read for yourself many of the experiences and stories from those who have experienced racist and xenophobic behavior.
So, for some of these reasons and many more I’m very happy to share with you my conversation with Sharyl Loeung. We do mention Lunar New Year which has since passed, but also might be a starting point for us to understand our Asian American brothers and sisters a bit better in such a time as this.
In this episode I talk to Sharyl Loeung about being part of a multicultural family, falling in love, working with multicultural students, and the weird things people have said to her about her kids.
Important Links

Stop AAPI Hate has forms in multiple languages for submitting reports of incidents – http://www.asianpacificpolicyandplanningcouncil.org/stop-aapi-hate/
Spit On, Yelled At, Attacked: Chinese-Americans Fear for Their Safety – https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/us/chinese-coronavirus-racist-attacks.html
Coronavirus pandemic triggers racist attacks against Asian Americans – https://www.vox.com/identities/2020/3/25/21190655/trump-coronavirus-racist-asian-americans
New York AG launches hotline to report coronavirus hate crimes, xenophobia against Asian Americans – https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/489474-new-york-attorney-general-launches-hotline-to-report-coronavirus-hate
Twitter #iamnotavirus – https://twitter.com/hashtag/IAmNotaVirus?src=hashtag_click

Show Notes

Cambodian Genocide – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide
Cambodian New Year – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_New_Year
Lunar New Year – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_New_Year
Seeing White by Scene on Radio – https://www.sceneonradio.org/seeing-white/
Raise Your Voice by Kathy Khang – https://www.ivpress.com/raise-your-voice
The Good Neighbear Podcast – https://thegoodneighbear.libsyn.com/
The Search For General Tso Documentary – http://www.thesearchforgeneraltso.com/

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