This is an always-evolving page that documents the diversity, equity, and inclusion work that I am actively doing in my personal and professional spheres.
I am not a perfect values-led business owner, but I try really, terribly, incredibly hard to walk my talk.
ANCESTRY
75% of my heritage comes from the island of Taiwan where my grandparents descended from aboriginal head hunters. 25% of my heritage comes from Black ancestry, and I was raised primarily in Black households on Potawatomi land (otherwise known as Dowagiac, MI) and Chemehuevi land (otherwise known as NW Las Vegas, NV).
Even with that diversity of experience and access to rich ancestry, I grew up blind to the structural racism and oppressive systems in existence in the US - to the point where I used to argue with my stepfather about the veracity of the racist encounters he had experienced. Like so many people from marginalized communities who are actively engaged in diversity, equity, and inclusion work, I am still unhooking from long standing beliefs, undoing past harm both to myself and others, and learning to forgive myself for all that I didn’t understand or know.
When my mother, who was half Black and half Taiwanese, passed away unexpectedly at the young age of 49 from a heart attack, time became my most precious asset and, as so many do during times of great difficulty, I began to reassess where I had been spending that time.
As a publicist, I had been working primarily with upper middle class, white, cisgender, female life coaches. That work paid the bills and gave me access to the entrepreneurial independence that I had always dreamed about. But it lacked fulfillment.
In her forties, my mother had discovered a passion for writing novels, and she would stay up late in the night weaving romantic stories together that drew on her rich cultural background, her life experiences, and her fervent interest in Italian history. Her dream was to publish those novels, and we had countless conversations about what it would look like to build a platform, attract an audience, and self publish those books.
With her untimely death, she never had a chance to bring that vision into reality, but that dream left a legacy that allowed me to find a deeper purpose for my life.
I realized that I had the skill set, the experience, and the heart for helping people like my mother – those who have been marginalized by oppressive systems for a lifetime – take back the stories that the media has traditionally told for them and tell it with their own voices.
With her vision and the patient support of my family, friends, and mentors, I began to daydream about a world in which everyone’s voices were equitably represented in the media and where stories were used to add nuance, elicit compassion, and reduce negative stereotypes that had been created systematically and strategically by a white supremacist system.
Now, I live and work on land from the Coeur d’Alene tribe with a multicultural daughter who I hope will grow up in a world that tells the whole story and that allows for people to be different in exactly the way they want to be.
My values of honesty, inclusion, integrity, and community drive the work that I do at Ginkgo PR.
Some examples of how I operationalize those values include:
Giving financial support to local and national charities that create greater representation in the newsroom, that support investigative journalism, that provide support to marginalized populations, and that provide access to food in areas of scarcity
Offering a sliding scale for clients experiencing hardship for all of my programs (PITCH SLAPPED, 90-Minute Publicist on Demand Consultation, Podcast and Editorial Retainers)
Vocalizing a land acknowledgment when I facilitate events like my pitch co-working sessions in PITCH SLAPPED
Prioritizing 70% of my client roster to BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, neurodiverse, and disabled authors and entrepreneurs while allocating the remaining 30% to advocates and allies who are visible and vocal about their social justice efforts. I call this specification out on my contact form and highlight it in my website copy and on interviews, so there’s no question about who I serve and why I do it.
Publishing transparent annual reports about my own DEI work like this one here
Hiring contractors and employees who are BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, neurodiverse, and disabled
Like I mentioned above, I am always working on unpacking my own internalized racism as a cisgender woman of color.
I’m actively unhooking from beliefs that I learned from a capitalist, colonalist, white supremacist culture that wants me to see myself through a deficit as an Asian American woman, profits off of me staying distracted, and benefits when I continue to seek external approval through codependent behaviors like perfectionism, people pleasing, or overworking.
Some of the people who have informed my strategies for creating equity in the media include:
Maytha Alhassen: For educating me about Critical Media Literacy
Alexandra Bell: For transforming media literacy into a form that speaks to the soul
Erica Courdae and India Jackson from Pause on the Play: For creating safe spaces that let me explore new perspectives and define my implicit and explicit values
Majora Carter, Wangari Maathai, Jane Gooddall: For demonstrating to me what it could look like to do social-justice and community-centered work that moves the needle toward equity
Alexia Vernon: For introducing me to intersectional feminist leaders and for giving me a platform and resources to learn how to use my voice
More to come!