Lane East Asian Network

On this day, 20 June 1967, boxing legend Muhammad Ali was convicted for refusing the draft for the Vietnam war in Houston, Texas. Ali had been a vocal opponent of the US war, saying “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs?”
To try to quell the escalating resistance to the war, Ali was given the maximum sentence of five years imprisonment and a $10,000 fine. But their efforts were unsuccessful, and the anti-war movement continued to grow. Despite the Nation of Islam beginning to distance themselves from Ali, demonstrations supporting him took place around the world, from Egypt to Guyana to London to Ghana. Four years later his conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court.
Ali had no regrets: "I wasn’t trying to be a leader. I just wanted to be free. And I made a stand all people, not just Black people, should have thought about making, because it wasn’t just Black people being drafted. The government had a system where the rich man’s son went to college, and the poor man’s son went to war. Then, after the rich man’s son got out of college, he did other things to keep him out of the Army until he was too old to be drafted."
Learn more about the movement against the Vietnam war in our podcast episodes 43-46: https://workingclasshistory.com/2020/09/23/e43-46-the-movement-against-the-vietnam-war-in-the-us/

Happy Birthday to Yuri Kochiyama and Malcolm X, who were close friends and comrades in the civil rights movement.

“Unless we know ourselves and our history, and other people and their history, there is really no way that we can really have positive kind of interaction where there is real understanding.”

—Yuri Kochiyama

I hope we're bringing enough zines for May Day today!
Noon-8pm at the Eugene park blocks (8th and Oak). There will be food, games, music, workshops, speeches, a may pole, screen printing, tons of leftist groups, costume contest, and more!
Details: https://neighborhoodanarchists.org/may-day

At various points during the open mic section of May Day 2022, members of the East Asian community will be sharing their thoughts on the white supremacist vandalization of the local Saigon Cafe.

We welcome everyone to join us in speaking out against this racist attack, as well as stand in solidarity with labor and union efforts in Lane County and beyond!

May Day 2022 is coming up on Sunday! We'll be celebrating noon-8pm in the Eugene Park Blocks! There will be food, games, music, workshops, speeches, a may pole, screen printing, tons of leftist groups, costume contest, and more!

Details and schedule here: https://neighborhoodanarchists.org/may-day

If you’re interested in tabling, facilitating a workshop, giving a speech, or something else, please contact us! (Or just show up and do it! There will be lots of space for ad-hoc things.)

“Vandals shot out one of the windows of Saigon Cafe on W. 11th Avenue with a BB gun this week - and used spray paint to mark the building with possible hate symbols and satanic imagery.

“The numbers 666, upside-down crosses and a pentagram were painted on the building. White crosses in circles were painted on the windows. The graffiti resembles a gun scope - or the Celtic Cross, which the Anti-Defamation League says is sometimes used by white supremacists.

“When a news crew visited the shopping center, the Vietnamese restaurant was the only business that appeared to have suffered vandalism.”

'Nice to have people offer to come help': Vandals hit Vietnamese restaurant in Eugene EUGENE, Ore. - Vandals shot out one of the windows of Saigon Cafe on W. 11th Avenue with a BB gun this week - and used spray paint to mark the building with possible hate symbols and satanic imagery. The numbers 666, upside-down crosses and a pentagram were painted on the building. White crosses in....

Cw: physical violence, s*xual assault.

One year ago today on March 16, 2021, six East Asian women were murdered in the Atlanta massage parlor massacre at the hands of a racist, misogynistic white man who referred to these women as temptations that must be eliminated.

In the aftermath, not only did we lose these bright souls, but a long-awaited conversation in the community began regarding how the fetishization, infantilization, and denial of autonomy others assign to East Asian women and femmes lead to this attack. This is reflected in the lifetimes of discriminatory experiences they encounter due to the intersection of racism and misogyny, including the fact that when they experience s*xual assault it is often dismissed and not taken seriously due to overt and covert racist sentiments that attempt to silence their ability to say ‘no’. Stereotyping as human trafficking victims, s*x workers, and submissive s*x objects affects us all— not to mention the obvious discrimination directed at those who truly do choose s*x work as a career or are forced into human trafficking.

If you are someone who finds these harms all too familiar and directed at you at various points in your life: you are not alone. Please reach out and we will do our best to connect you with culturally competent resources and support. Thank you for being a part of our community.

Bring a candle and a warm drink, but if you do not have any there will be enough to share.

2/19 one individual was murdered, five injured when a shooter opened fire on a group of 50 antifascists in Portland gathered to honor Amir Locke and Patrick Kimmons. Tonight we mourn and gather our strength. Join us in the Owen Rose Garden at 6pm with warm beverages and candles.

It's always a great day to celebrate the lunar new year and honor the experiences of Blasian and Black folx by being a true comrade to them in measurable ways. Gung hei fat choy— we wish you happiness and prosperity through solidarity and mutual aid.

“Happy Lunar New Year and African-American History month. It's a great day to be BLASIAN.”

—💬/📸: .jenny.moon
—♻️:

This is happening now. Show up when you can to advocate for our houseless populations that are terrorized on a regular basis just for existing with nowhere else to go.

Join together as a community to demand our governance divest from the practice of sweeps. Permanently.
Stop. The. Sweeps.

Where: the Atrium @ 99 W. 10th Ave
When: 12/2
Time: 2pm- as long as it takes
Bring: layers, whatever you need to stay comfy for the long haul. Food snacks for your party.

Come and hear speakers, advocates and testimony from our unhoused neighbors on the impact of the sweeps cycle on lives.

Warm tea, snacks, music, activities and more!
Hosted by a collaborative coalition of local advocates and organizations.

Head over to our booth at Asian Celebration before 10pm today to meet our team members! Donate $15 to LEAN and get a free art print from local muralist Nikolaj Byrdman. Your donation will keep our events functional, accessible, and free to everyone.

Thank you to everyone who attended our informal support group, BIPOC Movie Night: Coco, and made it such a fun time! So many organizers and advocates came together to ensure the event ran smoothly. For everyone who couldn't make it, we hope you're able to make the next one!

Check out Tomo Tsurumi's recap of the movie night with live music from Kai Muhammad and [performer redacted]. He enriched everyone's experience by giving each of us origami Dantes from the movie!

“BIPOC Movie and Live Music Night was too wonderful to stop making origami Dante the spiritual guide dog tonight. :) Thank you Nikolaj Byrdman and many other wonderful people for working so hard to make our BIPOC community so special!

“(The following sentences are written in Japanese. If you see strange English, it's not my fault but your auto translator's. 😆) 地元のBIPOC（黒人・先住民・有色人種）コミュニティの映画会＆コンサートに行ってきました。とても特別な気持ちで一杯になり、上映されていた『リメンバーミー』に登場するスピリチュアル・ガイド犬のダンテの折紙を作る手が止まらなくなりました。Nikolaj Byrdmanを始め、地元のBIPOCコミュニティを支えて下さる大勢の素晴らしい方々に感謝致します。”

We stand in solidarity with all protestors who were at the Thurston protest on this day one year ago. Protestors were assaulted by police officers and the hate groups that the Springfield Police Department conspired with to cause harm. “All lives” cannot matter until Black lives matter.

Today's the big day! Sizzle Pie will be donating pizza for BIPOC Movie Night: Coco (2017), an event for the BIPOC community with live music! Find solace and solidarity as we create the community we need in this informal BIPOC support group!

Friday, July 23, 7pm at [venue redacted].

“Laughter-filled conversations sprung up around the snack table between old friends and new acquaintances. Many offered their expressions of condolences and solidarity to Wang and Christensen, saying that ‘hate is not welcome here.’

“Taking a moment to step back and capture it all, Wang said ‘I didn’t cry about the paintball attack, but seeing the way the community has responded is enough to make me break down in tears.’”

A Community’s Response Against Hate On Friday morning, the house of two local and outspoken civil rights advocates—Xia Wang and Ben Christensen— was vandalized, again. This was the fourth time it has been targeted according to the couple who believe that these are hate crimes.

“Christensen and Wang, a mental health counselor who moved to the U.S. from China in 2012, said they are convinced Wang is being targeted because she is Asian and the only person of color in her neighborhood. [...]

“Last August someone painted over Wang’s ‘Black Lives Matter’ sign to read ‘All Lives Matter’ and on another occasion someone stole her sign, she said. [...]

“After reporting the incident as a hate crime, Christensen and Wang said they were upset with the response from the sheriff’s office, which Wang said questioned how the couple knew it was a hate crime or bias incident.”

Eugene Asian woman's house shot with paintballs in alleged hate crime None of Wang’s neighbors had paintballs shot at their houses. It's the fourth time Wang, the only person of color in her neighborhood, says her house has been targeted.

“The newest segment of these events is the Fair’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) workshops — featuring groups like the Lane East Asian Network and TransPonder. Diversity committee member Brooks McLain says the Fair has been working to make itself a more inclusive and welcoming space over the past five or six years, but those discussions have accelerated since George Floyd’s murder in 2020. In 2017, Native American groups protested the planned raising of a culturally appropriative ‘story pole.’

“‘The Fair thought it would be a good idea,’ McLain says of the workshops, ‘as we’re working to make our fair more inclusive — especially for BIPOC folks — that we give people some education and tools so that they know why it’s happening and what we’re trying to accomplish and also be a part of that change.’”

Coming Together in the Clouds 2021 marks the second online Oregon Country Fair after COVID-19 forced the event to a virtual platform in 2020. This year’s Fair in the Clouds features another virtual interactive platform, live st…

LEAN will be hosting a Navigating Microaggressions workshop for Oregon Country Fair today (Sunday, July 11) at 4pm. Check out this KLCC Oregon NPR article for the full list of OCF events!

It’s a Happening! Find OR Country “Fair In The Clouds” Weekend Schedule Here For the second year, the Oregon Country Fair will not be held on the wooded site in Veneta. The pandemic forced the decision in late spring, when many

This is a real board game created by a Japanese American citizen while imprisoned at the WWII concentration camp in Portland, Oregon. Many Japanese Oregonians suffered, with the camp's peak prisoner count being 3,676 people— and many more sent out-of-state.

We must acknowledge this dark part of Oregon history and check ourselves to make sure we are not replicating prejudiced perceptions and actions against Japanese and all other East Asian folx.

KEZI interviewed one of our organizers and founding members, Nikolaj Byrdman, regarding the safety payroll tax budget— from which the Eugene city council chose to allocate the vast majority of funds to EPD instead of letting the citizens of Eugene take it to a vote.

“We believe the community safety payroll tax budget, a whopping 65% of which currently goes towards EPD and 15% towards courts, prosecutors and jail beds, should be reallocated to support housing and homelessness services,” Byrdman said. “What people fail to realize is that even if EPD received 0% of the community safety payroll tax, they would still be overfunded with over $66 million from the city's general funds. Our community flourishes by supporting those with the least amount of power, not by criminalizing their existences. Reallocating funds away from EPD and towards housing and homelessness services is simply the right thing to do.”

Regardless of your stance, do you think citizens should be able to vote on where their tax dollars go?

How will Eugene use the new payroll tax? Questions remain Eugene's city council approved the payroll tax on June 10, 2019 and collection began on Jan. 1.

Congratulations to Utada Hikaru on coming out as nonbinary! They are known for their songs featured in the Kingdom Hearts videogame series and are an accomplished singer in their own right, with The Japan Times recognizing them as the most influential musician of the '00s decade in Japan.

Utada's pronouns are they/them and their honorific (such as Mr or Ms) of choice is Mx, which does not indicate gender or marital status.

Singer Utada Hikaru Reveals Nonbinary Identity, Wants More Discussions on LGBTQ Issues in Japan Japanese American singer Utada Hikaru revealed their nonbinary identity during a recent livestream on Instagram.if(!window.mobileCheck) pubg.queue.push(function(){initAdUnit("pubg-w6k-zpw");});The reveal: Over the weekend, the 38-year-old singer wished everyone a happy Pride Month and came out as no...

The September issue of Vogue Korea featured halmonis (grandmothers) from the rural Jeolla region. Most of them were on the cusp of their 100th birthdays.

Photography by Min Hyunwoo. Pictured in grey with bouquet in hand is his own halmoni.

“According to its website, LEAN is a ‘place for East Asian folx, encompassing origins in both Southeast and Northeast Asia, to celebrate their heritages and support each other through the unique challenges they face due to the racism inflicted upon them by white supremacists and their “peaceful” co-conspirators.’ The organization also supports transgender rights, Black Lives Matter and Indigenous and Islander communities.”

‘Always Pushed Out’: Eugene’s Asian community responds to hate Following a year of increased anti-Asian racism, the Lane East Asian Network and UO’s Asian and Pacific American Student Union are working to unite Eugene’s Asian community.

Are you available today at 6pm for free food, music, and dance at Monroe Park— all for a good cause? Support our South Asian community by attending this fundraiser for covid relief in India!

One of the most important things to note about White supremacy is that such a hateful ideology does not latch onto someone immediately. It starts small— from strangers making racist comments on the internet, to sources close to home fostering an ‘us versus them’ mentality. This is only further reinforced by organizations and government bodies that allow racism to go unchecked.

Knowing that the murderer in the Indiannapolis FedEx massacre sought out racist content on White supremacist websites then threatened ‘suicide by cop’, the FBI simply confiscated his shotgun but didn't pursue further action or closely monitor him to ensure he did not hurt anyone in the long run. The Sikh and SSWANA victims who were massacred paid dearly due to the negligence of people and a system that did not care.

We stand in solidarity alongside the Sikh community, many of whom are SSWANA— a cherished part of our Asian and BIPOC family. To prevent more racist-motivated tragedies like this from happening, we must combat racism in all of its forms: both the interpersonal as well as systemic racism that caused this act of violence in the first place.

'Turn the power strip off': FedEx shooter viewed white supremacist websites, IMPD says IMPD Monday night released a report indicating white supremacist websites were found on a search of Brandon Hole's computer in March 2020.