Real people, relevant and engaging conversations. Becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable
Overview
UTM Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion Office (EDIO) in partnership with Hart House co-presents Anti-O Convo's: Hot Topics Series for Fall 2020 / Winter 2021.
The purpose of Anti-O Convos (short for, Anti-Oppression Conversations) is to create safer, braver spaces to engage in conversations that explore current events and popular trends in social media, while unmasking misconceptions about various groups/communities/people.
Anti-O Convos aims to normalize conversations around anti-oppression in a respectful way, encouraging participants to share their perspectives and ideas, going beyond the surface level approach. Our hope through this initiative is to bridge current gaps between our diverse communities through dialogues of understanding and respect, and to create more inclusive and sustainable learning environments for students and the broader community.
Each session will include a different speaker, perspective and topic led by students, staff, faculty and/or community members. Look out for upcoming sessions by following @utmedo @harthouseuoft.
For This Session
Hate, racism and xenophobia has increased during a time when we as a community should be coming together as one; however, with the pandemic, there has been a rise of racial attacks towards those from Asian communities due to misinformed information that has been shared regarding the Covid-19 virus and its false linkage to that particular community. As stated by the United Nations Secretary General, it’s important that we “act now to strengthen the immunity of our societies against the virus of hate.” (Human Rights Watch).
In this session, Associate Prof. Hae Yeon Choo along with students and staff from various units, will engage in a dialogue about Anti-Asian Racism – its past, present and future.
Guest Speakers
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Sally Chen
Community Development Coordinator
Sally Chen completed her Honours Bachelor of Arts from the University of Toronto, in East Asian Studies and English literature. As an out-of-province student, she found in residence an amazing and supportive sense of community, as well as a place to develop and practice her commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion. Building on her residence student leadership experiences, she has spent the past seven years in the field of student housing and residence life, returning recently in 2018 to work at the Mississauga campus of the University of Toronto.
At SHRL, Sally is one of the Community Development Coordinators, responsible for overseeing a group of dedicated student leaders in building a safe, supportive, and transformative environment for students in residence. When she's not at work, she can be found reading, writing magic realism and speculative fiction, watching movies, and eating noodles of any kind.
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Hae Yeon Choo
Associate Professor of Sociology and Author
Dr. Hae Yeon Choo is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto, and is a 2018-2019 Deutsche Bank Member of Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, NJ). She is an author of Decentering Citizenship: Gender, Labor, and Migrant Rights in South Korea (Stanford University Press, 2016), a comparative study of three groups of Filipina women in South Korea: factory workers, wives of South Korean men, and hostesses at American military camptown clubs.
Her current research project examines the politics of land ownership in contemporary South Korea, delving into macro-level political contestations over land rights, together with the narratives of people who pursue class mobility through real estate speculation. She has also translated Audre Lorde's Sister Outsider and Patricia Hill Collins’s Black Feminist Thought into Korean.
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Avery Lam-Hong
Undergraduate Student
Hello there! My name is Avery Lam-Hong and I go by he/him/his pronouns. I'm currently a 3rd year undergraduate student at the University of Toronto Mississauga, pursuing a double major in Chemistry and Biology for Health Sciences. Additionally, I'm also the Group Advising Team Leader for the International Education Centre.
Aside from academics and work, I also partake in a variety of volunteering and club activities, such as philanthropy work for Vietnamese communities and non-profit organizations, volunteering at the Mississauga Hospital as a Youth Team Leader, and also being an executive or mentor for several clubs and departments (UTM Vietnamese Student Association, UTM Best Buddies, Erindale Biology Society, and Health & Counselling Centre). I'm looking forward to seeing the trajectory of this dialogue and what we can all take away from this meaningful topic.
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Julia Ramos
Student, Student Organizations Assistant
Hi everyone! My name is Julia Ramos and I use she/her pronouns. I am a 4th year student at the University of Toronto-Mississauga double majoring in Communication, Culture, Information, & Technology and Sociology. Working at school is something that I think is both a privilege and great opportunity to connect with other students and to be involved with the school.
I work as a Student Organizations Assistant with the Centre for Student Engagement and as an InfoBooth Assistant at the UTMSU. Currently I am one of the Co-Presidents of the Canadian Asian Student Society (UTM CASS) where we try to create and foster an inclusive environment where both Asians and non-Asians can connect with culture and form meaningful relationships with each other. I’m excited for this insightful conversation that we are going to have on this topic of racism that has become magnified during this time of the pandemic.
Moderator
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Kengu Black
UTM EDIO Programming Assistant
Kengu (she/her) is a Jamaican international student at the University of Toronto Mississauga, going into her third year doing a double major in Biology for Health Sciences and Women and Gender Studies. She is a 2018 University of Toronto Lester B. Pearson International Scholar, and has since held executive positions in UTM's Caribbean Connections club and Pre-Dental club. She is currently employed as a Programming Assistant in UTM's Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Office. Kengu is passionate about poverty alleviation, women empowerment, and advocating for equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) conversations.
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