Below the Radar Transcript
Pandemic Conversations: COVID-19 and Community Organizing — with Kimberley Wong
Speakers: Paige Smith, Am Johal, Kimberly Wong
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Paige Smith 0:06
Hello listeners. I'm Paige Smith with Below the Radar, a knowledge democracy podcast. Below the Radar is created by SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement and is recorded on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. On this episode of Below the Radar our host Am Johal sits down with Kimberly Wong, who currently sits as the chair of the City of Vancouver's Chinatown Legacy Stewardship Group. Together they talk about a variety of projects Kimberly is working on during the COVID 19 pandemic, including her work with the Hua Foundation and the Vancouver Just Recovery Coalition.
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Am Johal 0:49
Hi there, welcome to Below the Radar. Really excited to have Kimberly Wong joining us today. Welcome Kimberly, I'm wondering if we can just start by you introducing yourself a little bit?
Kimberly Wong 1:01
Hey Am, thanks for having me. So my name is Kimberly Wong. I'm a community organizer that does some work in Chinatown, also in the queer community and is during this pandemic organizing around a just recovery in Vancouver.
Am Johal 1:13
Great and I know that you've been working in Chinatown for a number of years and as COVID-19 the pandemic has hit it's definitely impacted particular neighborhoods. And there's particular ways that it lands down in communities that have particular needs, in terms of what the responses might be. Maybe you can speak a little bit to how you've approached this work in Chinatown and some of the challenges that emerged when the pandemic first hit.
Kimberly Wong 1:43
Yeah, so I mean, the first thing I'd like to say is that it certainly is a community effort. While I'm lucky enough to be speaking here with you, I'm by no means the only one doing work. Every single organization in Chinatown is doing something to help our community come out of this pandemic. And what we're seeing is, across the city and Chinatown is no exception to this. People who were marginalized in the before times, are being further marginalized now, because of this pandemic. So, for example, seniors in Chinatown, who faced a difficult barrier, having access to things like groceries, in particular greengrocers, so produce and things that you might find that are culturally appropriate for you that you know how to cook with, they are finding it even more difficult because of fears of being racially profiled outside, fears of you know, language barriers because of their inability to protect themselves from the virus. And so folks have been doing grocery deliveries for seniors who are low income around Chinatown and Strathcona for the past couple of months, actually,
Am Johal 2:49
I used to live in the Chinese Benevolent Association building right outside the Chinatown gate, which is predominantly seniors from the community but they have a few market rate rental units. So I have some familiarity with some of the housing projects that are there and I'm wondering if there's some, you know, particular issues that have arisen, or how government agencies like the city or the provincial government have supported those efforts, or what you might perceive as some of the gaps from public agencies in terms of supporting communities in Chinatown?
Kimberly Wong 3:27
Yeah, certainly. So we've been talking a lot about essential services in the last couple of weeks because there are people at City Hall who are suggesting that as a response to this pandemic and as a response to the relief funding that the city has had to give because of the pandemic we cut those services. And we know that people who are low income people who are marginalized require these kinds of services like libraries, community centers, public transit to live and to get around. So those are really, really important right now to protect, and to further build, because if, if it's anything that we should be doing right now, it's to be rebuilding, not, you know, taking away from those most marginalized and further marginalizing them.
Am Johal 4:12
There's been a lot of talk in the media around increases and a rise in racism. In many ways. It's not surprising because in many ways, what pandemics or crises can bring to the surface are things that already exist in society, power disparities, racism, and many things. They get heightened and come to the surface in a way that maybe the mainstream media begins to notice. Wondering in the context of the organizing that you do, how it's come up and become more pronounced?
Kimberly Wong 4:44
So before this pandemic broke out, I was in the process of working on a series of workshops with Jackie Wong at Hua Foundation, who is the race equity director, and we were talking about unpacking supremacies particularly within the Chinese Canadian community. And I think it's relevant more now than ever, given that there is an increase in violence against particularly Asian women and against seniors. But it's been in my mind, especially given the state of events right now, how we as Chinese people, as much as we are experiencing this now, black and Indigenous folks have been naming this kind of violence for years and years again and again but have had much less value afforded to their words and to their experiences. And so I think it's a time now to stand in solidarity with those groups, and realize that the experiences that we're having now of violence are a symptom of white supremacy.
Am Johal 5:51
Now, as the time of the emergency and the kind of triage efforts on the ground unfold, there's a lot of discussions around recovery. We have governments doing things that were very unforeseen a few months ago, where billions of dollars are being made available and money is literally being printed. The things that were really viewed as unimaginable not that long ago. And you've been involved a bit with Just Recovery Coalition, and I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about the work that you're doing in coalition with others around what a just recovery might look like?
Kimberly Wong 6:30
Yeah, so I mean, I'll, I'll say that I'm one of the co chairs with Matthew Norris, who's the Vice President at the Urban Native Youth Association. But I see myself as a convener of a lot of these different organizations and they come from all different sectors from across the city, from folks who work in healthcare, to the arts and culture sector, to you know, different kinds of nonprofits, that working spaces like the Downtown Eastside. And we're hearing from them that a lot of the essential funding that they need to to practice the things that they do for the communities that they are a part of, is, you know, being cut is at risk of being cut and, like the communities that they work with are all in need of, of further help and we're hearing it again and again, that it's, it's a time to come together and engage in community care to check in on one another and I think that that's what something that we're centering in the coalition. We're hoping that the work that we're doing adds value to the stuff that is already happening, and doesn't weigh on any one organization or any one person more than it needs to because this is a hard time already.
Am Johal 7:45
For members of the general public who might be listening to this interview in terms of how people can be allies and supportive of the work you're doing both with the coalition and your work in Chinatown. How can people be supportive of the work that you're doing?
Kimberly Wong 8:03
One thing people can do is read the joint statement that Matthew and I created for the coalition, it's on our website at vancouverjustrecovery.ca and so far as Chinatown goes, I think there, there's a lot of support from from city government, actually, through the Chinatown transformation team, as well as through a couple of different city councilors who are really, really engaged with different cultural communities, including Chinatown. So we are lucky to, you know, have the support of fair, influential folks. What's on my mind right now is like, how can we use the power that we have and the, you know, diplomacy that we are being seen as having and help folks who are also hurting in our allied communities who really are a part of our own community? I have been thinking a lot about how Chinatown is seen as, you know, just having ethnically Chinese people, which has never been the case, trying to unlearn those things because really, it's a way of dividing to simply move white supremacy and a tactic of white supremacy to divide us in order to not have us organize together. So before I get too off subject, Hua Foundation's website is huafoundation.org H-U-A foundation.
Am Johal 9:23
And we'll link to it in the description as well. I'm wondering you know, around how you came into doing community organizing and political organizing work as a younger activist coming into doing the various activities that you're involved with, including in Chinatown where there are generations in histories of this work that go back, you know, well over 100 years and 150 years probably and I'm wondering how your own sort of journey into into doing this work?
Kimberly Wong 9:55
I mean, my journey into organizing is different from my journey in Chinatown, I think. They’re interrelated but my organizing journey started kind of within environmental and climate justice organizing. I was 16 and I was a musical theater nerd, still am, but I joined a group called kids for climate action and we did flash mobs around the city, where we changed all of the lyrics to popular songs to make them climate change oriented. We had the full choreography and everything. [laughs] But my journey in Chinatown was actually through a workshop that Hua Foundation put on, a dumpling making workshop and it was like very low barrier. But I can remember it was the first time that I'd ever been in a room filled with other diasporic Asian people who, you know, grew up here, were multigenerational, I'm fifth generation Chinese Canadian or Cantonese diasporic. And so it's been a pleasure doing the kind of like belonging, and diasporic work within the Chinese Canadian community. But it's all being done as I'm, you know, constantly learning about, it's all being done on unceded land and so trying to build solidarity across different groups is something that I have found, you know, is feeling more purposeful and is feeling good, because it's, it feels like a duty. Especially given that my ancestors when they came here, they were building the Canadian Pacific Railway. You know, it's a thing, the Pacific Railway that was a part of like colonizing and removing Indigenous people off their land. But when Chinese workers were treated poorly, Indigenous folks let them stay at their camps. So that kind of solidarity stretches back many, many generations and it's a way of honoring my ancestors, because honoring ancestors is extremely essential to my culture.
Am Johal 12:12
Now you've done a bit of work also with Love Intersections. I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about that?
Kimberly Wong 12:18
Yeah, um, so Love Intersections was a group that I used to be a part of and they are a queer artist collective, artists of color collective and they do mostly filmmaking right now I think. They were co founded by Jen and David, Jen Sunshine and David Eng and the film that I was a part of Yellow Peril: Queer Destiny, tried to relate both ancestral and historic instances of anti Chinese racism, with anti Chinese racism that is felt in the queer community. It features and catalogs the story, kind of a cultural coming of age of Made in China, a drag queen.
Am Johal 13:03
Kimberly, as you're continuing to go through the work, the emergency has not left. There's a lot of uncertainty about the future. But from your perspective and doing work on the ground, what are some of the challenges that you see forthcoming in the kind of coming months given that we're out of a certain phase of the pandemic landing down, but clearly, there's a lot of uncertainty in the next few months. But what are some of the needs on the ground and supports that are still needed? Because it seems like governments are still trying to sort out what they can and can't do and community is really jumping into the spaces where a lot of needs are.
Kimberly Wong 13:45
Yeah, communities filling in all the gaps right now. But I think that like with a grocery program, for example, it's something that's been needed for such a long time but this pandemic was an excuse for us to be like this is essential, essential now. It was always needed but I hope that programs like this are extended beyond the pandemic because they serve a really crucial group. Also, I see a shift, I hope an awakening in the way that we talk about race in Canada, in the way that we think about racial equity, in the way that we plan for different people, in the way that we collect data for marginalized groups and groups who are typically underrepresented and and I hope that that sparks outrage and also change in the way that we form policy to serve these communities that are being impacted most by the pandemic. But I'm also really looking forward to getting back to the important cultural work that I think is healing. I feel very privileged to be able to do the kind of healing work that happens in Chinatown, and to think about, you know, futures for people of color, for femmes and for folks in our community.
Am Johal 15:06
Thanks so much for joining us on Below the Radar.
Kimberly Wong 15:10
Thanks!
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Paige Smith 15:15
Thank you again to Kimberly Wong for joining us on Below the Radar. To learn more about the Hua Foundation and the Vancouver Just Recovery Coalition, check out the links in the episode description. Stay in the loop with Below the Radar by following us on Twitter and Facebook and be sure to subscribe wherever you find your podcasts. As always, thanks to the team that puts this podcast together including myself, Paige Smith, Rachel Wong, Fiorella Pinillos, Kathy Feng, and Jackie Obungah. David Steele is the composer of our theme music and thank you for listening. Tune in next time for a brand new episode of Below the Radar.
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