KRISTIN  LEONG

Get a behind-the-scenes look into Kristin Leong's 2017 TED-Ed Innovation Project ROLL CALL. This project is putting a human face to the fact that there is a profound gap separating students from teachers in America’s public schools based on culture, race, sexual orientation, and gender. As a TED-Ed Innovative Educator, Kristin is shooting portraits of local and international teachers and students and inviting participants to respond to two questions: 1) What do you have in common with your students/teachers? 2) Does it matter that students and teachers have things in common? This talk will conclude with ways students, teachers, and community members can get involved with ROLL CALL and expand this conversation about representation in schools. Kristin Leong, M.Ed. is a TED-Ed Innovative Educator and is currently serving her third year as a Washington State Teacher Leader. Her current TED-Ed project ROLL CALL (RollCallProject.com) is humanizing the culture gaps separating students and teachers through portraits and interviews. In addition to teaching middle level Humanities, she is also a public speaker and writer focused on equity in education. She once delivered a talk at Town Hall entitled "Nightclub Bartending & Middle School Teaching: A Venn Diagram." Her project HALF on biracial identity in America was nominated for a USA Today Outstanding Academic & Intellectual Endeavor award. She was named a Graduate Already in the Drivers' Seat by the New York Times. Videos of Kristin and information about her upcoming appearances are available at kristinleong.com. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

On Asian America is presented in partnership by KUOW, Humanities Washington, Spokane Public Radio, and Northwest Public Broadcasting. KUOW's Community Engagement Producer Kristin Leong and On Asian America special guests Dr. Tabitha Espina, Dr. Douglas S. Ishii and Joe Kye will take your questions and comments about the series for a live moderated discussion. Get in touch with KUOW's Community Engagement team about this series: Web: https://www.kuow.org/engage Email: engage@kuow.org Phone: 877-304-7190 Learn more about KUOW's live events: https://www.kuow.org/events ON ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES SERIES: Over 6,600 incidents of anti-Asian assaults have occurred in the last year, with over 2,800 of those incidents reported in March 2021 alone — a 164% increase over the same period last year. Despite the recent surge in anti-Asian hate crimes, discrimination against people of Asian and Pacific Islander descent living in the U.S is nothing new. Furthermore, the ways that different groups experience this hate is far from homogenous, contrary to the dominant “Asian American” narrative. Join us for a virtual discussion that explores the modern experience of being Asian in America. How are gendered stereotypes and the myth of the “model minority” impacting the everyday lives of Asians in America? What is like to be part of the Asian community in rural eastern Washington? How do we talk about the “Asian American Pacific Islander” experience while also honoring the diversity of cultures that the term is meant to encompass? This replay of On Asian America is the culmination of Asian and Pacific Islander journalists, scholars, artists and community members sharing their stories in answer to these questions and more. GUESTS: Kristin Leong is KUOW’s Community Engagement producer. She is the founder of RollCallProject.com, an international TED-Ed project humanizing the culture gaps separating students and teachers. Her portrait series HALF: Biracial + Bicultural in America was nominated for USA Today's Outstanding Academic & Intellectual Endeavor Award and as a senior in college The New York Times called her a “graduate already in the driver’s seat.” Her weekly newsletter ROCK PAPER RADIO (RockPaperRadio.com) recently launched a national multimedia project fueled by artists of color calling for Asian and Black solidarity. Leong is Chinese and white and originally from Honolulu, Hawaii. Dr. Tabitha Espina is assistant professor of Rhetoric and Composition at Eastern Oregon University. She has published her work in College English, Composition Forum, Race and Pedagogy Journal, Asian Studies, Humanities Diliman, Pacific Asian Inquiry, Oregon Humanities, Humanities Washington and Micronesian Educator. She has presented throughout the continental US and in eight countries. Espina is a third-generation Filipina proudly from Guam. Dr. Douglas S. Ishii is assistant professor of Asian American Literature and Culture in the Department of English at the University of Washington, Seattle. He teaches and writes about the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and citizenship in North American literature and media by Black and Indigenous artists and other artists of color. Ishii’s forthcoming book, Something Real: Asian American Arts Activism and the Racialization of Sophistication, explores politicized Asian American arts activism from the Asian American Movement (1968–1977) to the present. He is a fourth-generation Japanese American who was raised on a fruit farm and is a recent arrival to Seattle. Joe Kye is a singer, composer, violinist-looper and TEDx speaker. Drawing upon his immigrant upbringing, Kye’s layered performances weave together storytelling and a unexpected mix of musical genres from classical to hip hop. His melodies, vocals, and narratives uplift and empower listeners, while exploring complex themes of Asian American identity. Kye has opened for Yo-Yo Ma, rapper Warren G, and senator Bernie Sanders; and he has been featured on NPR. Kye was born in Korea and was raised in Seattle. SOURCES: https://kuow.org/stories/on-asian-america-aapi-identities-and-experiences https://kuow.org/stories/attractive-for-an-asian-man-a-photographer-reframes-asian-american-masculinity https://kuow.org/stories/on-asian-america-sex-gender-and-the-exotic-other https://www.humanities.org/on-asian-america-aapi-experiences-and-identities/

What does it mean to be a person of color? Last fall, a report from North Thurston Public Schools outraged Asian community members. The problem? The district had grouped Asian students with white students, distinguishing “people of color” as a separate category. Because white and Asian students perform similarly well on tests, the implication was clear: Person of color meant underperforming. Join KUOW producer and three-term Washington State Teacher Leader Kristin Leong, M.Ed. for a look behind-the-scenes of her reporting on the erasure of Asian students. Read the story here: https://kuow.org/stories/whitewashing-of-asian-students-and-the-report-that-launched-a-reckoning The centerpiece of this event will be an interactive conversation with audience members. All are welcome. We want to hear from you: What kind of stories about Asian experiences are lacking from mainstream media coverage? In what ways is the "model minority" myth still alive in 2021? Who should KUOW be listening to in the Asian community? What is the role of our Asian community in the Black Lives Matter movement? What should schools be doing to better serve students who are farthest from educational justice? How do Asian community members feel about their representation (or lack thereof) in diversity and equity discourse? Leong will be joined by KUOW editor Isolde Raftery and Stanford University student Christina Joo. Generous time will be reserved for conversation and Q&A. Register through Eventbrite, and we'll send you a reminder about the program: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/meet-the-newsmaker-a-conversation-with-kristin-leong-on-asian-erasure-tickets-139517491573?aff=ebdssbonlinesearch If you would like to share comments or questions ahead of this engagement, please email engage@kuow.org, or tweet us @KUOWengage. Photo (portrait of Christina Joo): Kristin Leong for KUOW Design: Teo at https://www.instagram.com/teo.__dora/

In this short film, meet Curiosity Club’s 4th cohort, which gathered over Zoom shortly after the 2020 presidential election. Curiosity Club is KUOW’s nerdy supper club founded on one simple question: Can compelling storytelling and a shared meal transform a group of strangers into a community? So far, we’re seeing exciting evidence that the answer to that question is yes. The inquisitive cohort, along with Curiosity Club producer and facilitator Kristin Leong, and KUOW editors Isolde Raftery and Liz Jones, gathered virtually on December 19, 2020 to discuss pandemic roller skating, Black joy, the #MeToo movement, and Seattle’s evolving political preferences. To learn more about Curiosity Club and to find stories from our nerdy supper club experiment, visit KUOW.org/CuriosityClub. To find an FAQ about Curiosity Club, visit https://kuow.org/stories/curiosityclubFAQ To learn more about Curiosity Club’s 4th cohort, the community members featured in this film, visit: https://kuow.org/stories/meet-KUOW-curiosity-club-cohort-four This film was produced by Lit It Ripple studio.

What does a portrait series on bicultural Americans, a movement to humanize the culture gaps in our schools and a nerdy supper club have in common? Kristin Leong and a fearless tackling of complex conversations is at the heart of all of them. In this keynote address, Leong will offer a behind-the-scenes glimpse into some of her most creative and impactful experiments in community building. She will also share how she brings what she learned as a teacher about empathy and connecting across divides into her current work as a public radio producer.

Surprisingly, there is overlap between nightclub and classroom professional life. This talk aims to clarify some of that overlap with the speed of a bartender and the analysis of a English teacher. ** Kristin Leong is a middle school teacher, writer, and former Seattle nightclub bartender. She does not like people who drink Long Island Iced Teas. She tweets @kristinleong.

When multimedia producer Kristin Leong received $10,000 from TED with no strings attached, she turned it into a nationwide rally call for solidarity. #AZNxBLM brought together 20 artists of color from across the U.S. The project produced 14 original multimedia works that explored the potential power of solidarity between the Stop Asian Hate and Black Lives Matter movements during the civil rights reckoning of 2020. #AZNxBLM was created and led by Kristin Leong and supported by ROCK PAPER RADIO, The Slants Foundation, and the TED Mystery Experiment. This video was edited by Hailey Brumley. For more information visit RockPaperRadio.com.

Kristin Leong's finale talk at the University of Washington with the Seattle Times' and KPLU's Why I Teach event on 25 Feb 2015. Kristin shares an inspirational story about a student and an unforgettable poem and explains why she teaches her students to be brave.