Tiffany Yu - Raw Video 2
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[00:00:00] I just didn't wanna miss it 'cause you were about to tell a story and I love stories. I know, or I could have waited until we started recording.
But the story is that when we first started, it's called the Awesome Foundation Disability Chapter. People thought we weren't gonna make it past two years. two years would've been like 20 K of grants awarded. And now we're at over 65,005 years in running. And we made it through a pandemic when we know people's, financial situation, our trustees who contribute the money every month, we know their situation's changed.
And [00:00:30] we just continue to award grants every month. That's huge. By the way I was trying to figure this out. Is this directly tied into the Georgetown Disability Empowerment Endowment Fund? It's different. No, that's a whole separate thing. So that's a, yeah, that's a whole separate thing.
So the story behind that is in 2017, I feel extremely privileged because not only did my mom work really hard and support me through my own college trajectory I then worked at Goldman I saved up a lot of money.
And I wanted to pay it forward. So I reached out to George in 2017 and I said, Hey, I'm [00:01:00] thinking of starting a scholarship fund for disabled students because at least for me, I feel like my education became the key to, getting that internship at Goldman.
And it's funny 'cause I mentioned Goldman and now I'm a disability advocate, but I actually think that. those years in the corporate world lend a lot of credibility to my work now. But in 2017, they said, okay, it's gonna take a hundred thousand dollars if you wanna start this fund.
And we had come up with a payment plan and then they said, Hey Tiffany, we feel uncomfortable with calling it a disability [00:01:30] scholarship. And here I am. I've done so much work in, I guess at that time it had been eight years of. Telling people that disability is not a bad word. I take pride in a disability identity.
Just say the word. I have a friend who just started a hashtag called hashtag say the word, I went back to them. I said I didn't say it in these exact words, but I was like, the fact that you are coming to me, a disability advocate, telling me that you as a non-disabled person feel uncomfortable with how I wanna name a scholarship.
I don't know if this is the right place for it. So that was 2017. So [00:02:00] we decided not to move forward with it come 20 20, 20 21. One of the professors that I had at Georgetown, or I didn't have, she was one of the supporters of my work, looped me into some of the work that was going on campus to create a disability cultural center at Georgetown.
Wow. And on the call I said, years ago, almost five years ago, I had thought about starting a disability scholarship. But I'm wondering if we can broaden the scope to disability initiatives and call it a disability empowerment fund. And so I went back, I restarted that conversation after [00:02:30] feeling a little bit scarred in 2017, that they didn't like the name.
And I said, this needs to be called disability empowerment. And we fought a little bit, but then they said, okay, wow. And then I said, I'm out of the a hundred k. I'm gonna put in 50. I was feeling ambitious. 'cause crypto, I'm just kidding. But yeah I feel like joking, but not joking.
So I said I'm gonna put a 50 K, but would love to see the campus community and Georgetown community rally around this to help us get to the a hundred k. And come and then big news, maybe you didn't find this in your research. Come [00:03:00] 2023, we received another pledge that come 2023, the Disability Empowerment Endowed Fund will be fully funded and start making distributions.
Wow. So we huge. So we raised a hundred k. Yeah. Wow. Congratulations. That's absolutely massive. And I can't imagine how many people I was gonna help. Yeah, I oftentimes I look to initiatives in the A P I community, like gold House is one of them. That is really doing a good job of saying, this community has power and influence.
we are selling, their first [00:03:30] initiative was called gold Open, where they were buying out movie theaters and saying, we want more Asian stories. And authentic Asian cast, and So yeah. So that's where the kind of, that intersection comes in.
Yeah, absolutely. And that is a big part of, the big Asian energy mission of course, was that we want to hear the Asian side of the story. It's not just Asian stories, but it's the Asian side of the stories. I feel like so many, change makers, including, some of the people I've spoken to, CEOs and people who have made huge differences.
I [00:04:00] feel like when they're retelling their story, there's a little bit a side where they'll I wouldn't say hide, but they wouldn't promote their own background and lineage. I think there's a little bit of fear of how they'll come off if they do. And it's a complex cultural world. And I think one of the podcast that I was listening to, you talk about, I think it was the Nicki Grom podcast.
You're talking about languaging and how languaging is such an important thing. You were talking about. The words like trauma for example. And we have all of these parts of our origin stories and we don't owe anyone. I'm just gonna quote [00:04:30] you here 'cause I love this quote, right?
We don't owe anyone our origin stories. We're constantly questioned on it. That's always part of this back and forth struggle we have with that identity. So I always like to start with the question, which is, where are you from? Because I like to let people reclaim that ownership.
So where are you from, Tiffany? I actually think that my Asian identity only in the last couple of years has really made me better understand. Intersectionality and what's called disability intersectionality about how my asianness impacted, how I viewed my [00:05:00] identity.
But where am I from? Born and raised in the us born in Washington dc raised in Bethesda, Maryland. My mom is a refugee from the Vietnam War, and my dad is an immigrant from Taiwan. So this part of the journey that you had, you were raised in America and.
Would you feel comfortable sharing the part of your journey of course the car crash the accident if, yeah. If that's Yeah. So I'm sure as you see, I call these our disability origin stories, and as you quoted me, we don't owe our origin stories to anyone.
But part of the reason why I [00:05:30] share them is not only do they provide context, but exactly like you said, they allow us to reclaim that narrative. And when we don't provide that context or don't reclaim our narratives, we give space for other people to make assumptions. And that's part of why I share.
So a turning point in what I call my first disability origin story happened when I was nine. a couple of my siblings and I decided to drop my mom off at the airport. She was going on business trip to Taiwan. On the way home, my dad lost control of the car and he unfortunately ended up passing away.
And [00:06:00] my sister and my brother and I were in the car and all of us acquired different injuries. But I think mine ended up becoming the most, I was gonna say the most permanence but really the most visible. And so I ended up permanently paralyzing one of my arms. It's known as a brachial plexus injury.
I also shattered a couple bones in one of my legs. If people are familiar with anatomy, I shattered my femur and my tibia. Those are like the two big bones in your leg. And then much later I would be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, which [00:06:30] is a type of mental health disability.
And yeah I'll pause there. Okay, great. Or I dunno if I continue. So I'll say this one last thing. What I do wanna share from that origin story is that to me, this isn't just a story about disability, it's a story about compounded grief. And the grief is the change in my body.
Grief as many of us understand in terms of losing a loved one, but then also the grief, and I don't think enough people talk about this, but the loss of childhood innocence or a k a childhood trauma, right? And I [00:07:00] think as a kid, what exacerbated, what ultimately ended up becoming P T S D was I did not know how to handle all of that grief.
Of course, given the fact that you were still at such a young age. From reading on the other things you've mentioned, especially on this journey of healing and empowerment, you talk about how you now have a support team. You have a support network. Was any of that available to you when you were in the early stages of development?
What was that like? How did little Tiffany come to become the, the [00:07:30] powerhouse influence icon that she has become today? What was that journey like? Yeah, you just made me reflect on something funny, which is my therapist. My therapist is curious about how I became this as well.
and I mentioned that because it was never vocalized, but after the car accident, What I had learned and internalized was that we should not share anything about ourselves that might cause shame to the family unit, right? At least in my asian cultural context, [00:08:00] shame is viewed in the family.
Yes. So here is a car accident. And so it was instilled in me that I shouldn't tell anyone about the car accident. So I didn't, I told everyone my dad was away on a trip. Only very select Few people knew that he had passed away. Then I wore long sleeves all the time to hide my arm. And when you asked me where I was from, I wanted to share that disability intersectionality, because embedded within this one body is silence and shame around.
Like my Asian identity, I noticed discriminated a [00:08:30] lot against my disability identity or the fact that I had experienced trauma or lost a loved one. So for 12 years I didn't tell anyone. And even now, as people either listen to podcasts like this or see things that I post on social media, I'll get notes from people that I went to, elementary school, middle school, high school with.
who will say things like, Tiffany, I knew about the car accident, but I didn't know about your dad. I'm really sorry. Or I'll get comments from people I went to high school with who say I knew about your arm, but I didn't know that it was from a car accident. I assumed [00:09:00] it was from birth.
That's why I talk a lot about origin stories. And reclaiming the narrative. Yeah. So I did have a turning point in 2009. Where I was a senior in college, had just finished my summer internship in investment banking at Goldman Sachs had my full-time offer in hand. So I felt, I don't know and I wonder if being the daughter of Asian immigrants, like that felt like success to me.
So now, like I had the thing that would make my family happy, right? You've earned it. The right the permission. Now you can have other areas. Yeah. Yeah. And so I started to get really curious. I'm like, [00:09:30] okay, I know where I feel confident where I'm going after I graduate from college.
what are some other areas that I can grow in while I'm in a safer container of being in a collegial university environment? And one part of my story that some people know is that when I was a freshman, I started a club at Georgetown, a Taiwanese American club. And interestingly enough, when we started the Taiwanese American Club, like there was another club called the Chinese Student Alliance, and they were like, why are you creating a Taiwanese club like, We're all encompassing.
But anyway we were stubborn and we [00:10:00] started the Chinese American Club, but we ended up like winning. We won like a new Taiwanese club award. Like I got really plugged into the Taiwanese American community. And coming out of this Goldman Sachs internship, now the Taiwanese Club was like legacy on its own.
I was like, I did the Taiwanese Club. Like what about a disability club? And I will say that the decision to decide to share that story, the story of the car accident was, that's such a good question. I don't know if I feel like what's coming up for me right now is out of [00:10:30] desperation.
Like I felt so alone in this disability identity, I really wanted to someone to see the truth because keep in mind that from nine years old until age 21, long suits all the time. Dad's away on a trip. No one knows about the car accident. And I'm just going around not being myself, and I have to keep track of the secret, which is weird 'cause it's the truth. So I will say that think the person that you're seeing now is so different from my mom And that's what my therapist is curious, because [00:11:00] my mom is still, don't tell anyone about the car accident. Put this holy water on your arm to maybe end surgeries, maybe to fix your arm. yeah, I don't know. I feel like we use terminology like warrior a lot in disability spaces. You're always fighting, and that felt really exhausting to me, and I didn't want to be, they call us like B P I Warriors, like brachial plexus injury warriors. I didn't wanna be a B P I Warrior anymore. I just wanted to be, little Tiffany who happened to have a paralyzed arm and not have to always feel like I [00:11:30] was fighting.
I was also born in Taiwan. And there was a time I was going through my own healing journey and I was talking to a therapist and it was great. It was one of the most powerful things that I think I'm so grateful that I went through.
And, when I told my mom about it, there was a lot of pushback. There was a lot of okay, but fine, but just don't tell anybody that you're going through it. There's a lot of shame about speaking up about this. So when you were telling me this story, two questions came up in my mind.
The first one was, when you first started Owning what you had gone through, and actually [00:12:00] speaking about it, creating this, disabilities organization on campus. You must have been quite young, so you were still in university. How did your parents deal with that?
Was there any pushback? Was there a struggle or conversation that you went through? even now I'm 34 now. I started the first iteration of Diversability when I was 21. So we've been around for 13 years. My mom calls it monkey business still does, here in, in 2022.
But it's like, how can we honor and have compassion for her generation? So she recently said to me, [00:12:30] she recently said, Tiffany, I feel like I failed as a mom. And I said, what do you mean? And she goes, all of my friends can brag about their kids and I don't feel like I can brag about mine.
Oh my gosh. And actually wrote a post about this and I said, I wish I could. Like one of these years, or one of these days, I'm gonna collect testimonials from everyone who's been impacted by our work at Diverse Ability. And I'm gonna put them in a book and I'm gonna give them to my mom. Because I think that for her, all she sees is that I'm sharing [00:13:00] family shame.
I mean I'm in the process like very early stages right now of drafting out what might become a memoir know when you write a memoir, you think like hard thing that happens at the beginning, but what's the triumph at the end? And I was talking with my writing group about what my triumph at the end was, and they think it's that first time you gave that TED talk where finally you're on the TEDx stage and you are sharing a story that you didn't tell anyone about for 12 years.
I remember in my group, so I gave my first Ted Talk in my hometown and my mom says, Tiffany, are you getting paid for that? She also didn't come. [00:13:30] And so I think that some of the nuance that I wanna highlight, at least even in this conversation in my life too, is that I feel like I can be very celebrated in what I've done to amplify and uplift the disability community.
it's okay that my mom still doesn't acknowledge that this is a real job. And is not supportive in the way that. my white peers and their parents might be right. I think this is why community is such a big and such an important thing. It is a generational shift. What [00:14:00] we constantly seeing is that there is a newer generation of Asian Americans who are, I think much more understanding of the global context behind these cultures.
It's not one track. It's much more complex and it is intersectional. When you were mentioning the idea that she doesn't see it as a real job I just had to shake my head because I could so relate to that. yeah, and I'll acknowledge, a lot of advocacy work pays $0.
And I think for me, I feel really proud that like I call it creative entrepreneurship or even creative [00:14:30] advocacy where I do have a very large part of where I spend my time. With my advocacy hat on that pays $0, but has huge impact. And so then I had to be creative about, how am I gonna make a $50,000 donation to Georgetown for this endowment because I got really excited about something.
But yeah, like how can we come up with creative ways to support ourselves that don't look like the nine to five, that our parents at least that my immigrant parents would've been like a dream for them. Absolutely. Because their value system might be different, their [00:15:00] sense of what is valued and even the idea of what societal value is to them, of going back to that kind of like very stereotypical, doctor or lawyer kind of stereotype holds that, because there is that kind of cultural backing where there's a very linear, this is right, this is not right, or this is less right.
And it's very hierarchical. And we don't. Oh I was gonna say you can also, oh, sorry. Why don't you finish? Sorry. I run a podcast too, and I feel like I'm an interrupter, so I'm gonna no, please. I love this. Please interrupt away. We're here to hear your story, so [00:15:30] what you wanna share is important.
Yeah. It's like you can look at Tiffany now, like full-time disability advocate. Mom, not super supportive. Also keep in mind that I have a lot of really trying to fulfill this model minority of I went to Georgetown, I worked at Goldman, like I tried to do all the things. And there's another disability advocate, Mia Ives ruble, and she says, because we're disabled, we can never be the model minority.
And when I heard her say that it be, that brain exploding emoji, I was just [00:16:00] like, I was trying, and I even look at it like this relationship with my mom, and I think things still are in the family unit, but they're changing with our generation. But it was like I did all the things, but because I have a disabled body, and I don't know, maybe I'll go home and confirm this with my mom.
Is that. I will never be like the physical ideal of perfection that I think maybe she had envisioned out of her kids and why she worked so hard. So even though I had all the accolades, I think actually this is why I actually moved to [00:16:30] doing disability advocacy work.
As I said, I literally have tried to textbook do all the things that I think my mom would've wanted her. Kid to do. And it's still not enough. No. And so now let me think about what I wanna do. And you talk about your own healing journey, and I'm just like, I spent maybe 20 years, yeah.
Actually it was 20 years after becoming disabled. Trying to do things so that she could brag about me to her friends, God, right? Yeah. that one line that to how do we become the good son and daughter that my [00:17:00] parents could then brag to their friends about. That I feel is such an internal journey for, it's such an internal battle for so many Asian Americans that I know of in their entire lives.
And there's that shift, that handover that you talked about, where you go from, How do I be perfect? How do I be the perfect child? And then you hit these check marks, right? Like Goldman Sachs a huge, obviously huge company. Georgetown education becoming, a speaker winning these accolades, working for mayor, all these kind of humongous things and coming to realize that it would never be enough.
would [00:17:30] never be enough because it's not really, there is no enough, there is never going to be an enough. And I think that's something that so many listeners and so many people in our community, I think will struggle with. So how did you come to give yourself that acknowledgement? How do you come to individuate in some way and being like, I am enough.
Yeah. So that exchange that I told you about where she feel like she failed, that happened a year ago. And I actually, spent a lot of time reflecting and what I realized is that my mom actually is the best. She came to the US right? American Dream. [00:18:00] She got full scholarships to her undergrad and grad.
Had four kids. unfortunately, her husband passed away maybe about 15 years after they were married. I don't believe she had any familial support. She's single-handedly raised four kids. All of us are in our thirties now. She now has two grandkids. But she supported us so relentlessly.
and this is my privilege as a result of her, I graduate with no student debt. And I know for a lot of my peers, I have peers who still have six figures of student debt that they're paying off and, worked in [00:18:30] investment banking and went to H B Ss, and but anyway I don't wanna be her and as my mom, like on paper, the things she had to do.
And so it's like I have tons of respect for that. Huge, yeah. and I think that, your question how did I decide that I was just gonna be me? Is because I realized maybe I was trying to be her, but I don't want her life. That's so hard. It's so hard to leave your whole family during a war to come here.
that's why I wanna have this intersection of like compassion and respect and I don't wanna vilify her it's always [00:19:00] funny 'cause I feel like our generation, we always call the generation below entitled, But what entitlement really is to me, is privilege. And how hard my mom worked, made it so that I could be here and do all of this.
Even when I made the pledge that I was going to start this disability empowerment endowed fund, like my mom wasn't happy about that. She's like, why are you trying this disability fund? But I think for me, and you mentioned like support system or a web of support I think I had to learn that the person who gave birth to [00:19:30] me and raised me might not be in my support system, and that's okay.
Can I find a second or another chosen family and my support system is I have a coach. I've got my mental health therapist, I've got an occupational therapist, I've got friends, I've got different communities I'm in. I've got the community I built, the disability community I built.
And that's okay. And I've come on a couple podcasts talking about my mom. And I think oftentimes a lot of people, are sad. they were like, I wish your mom could just see who you are. And she's seeing me through her lens, which is, she's [00:20:00] the hero of her own story.
She worked her ass off. like, when I think about how hard she had to work, I'm just like, I'm tired. But how can we also honor that intergenerationally? Like things are starting to change. Like I've noticed in our generation, like in my mom's generation, The narrative was always around erasure.
Erase your Asian identity. Don't lean into the fact that you're a daughter of immigrants, or that your skin or hair color is different. Just blend in with the wallpaper and don't draw any attention to yourself and find that stable job and find, a partner and have a family. [00:20:30] Where now, I think given the rise of social media, and I would argue I'm, Going into adulthood, I became a digital native.
Like we didn't have like cell phone, like we had the way old Mac computers back then. but like the rise of social media has given all of us a microphone. Where we can be our own hype people and we can find people across the internet to be our hype people too. And It's a fascinating world that we live in. Because I think one of the things that I probably might wanna do some reflecting on after this is I feel very [00:21:00] celebrated, right? And a lot of things that I'm doing, but am I being celebrated by the people who really I want in my heart?
And so actually what I'm thinking about is like I'm celebrated by like social media masses, but I'm not celebrated by my mom. And is there a different weight that you put on that level of celebration? Is that okay? I don't know. I'm just thinking out loud this, like what I do.
No, I love it. Yeah. This is great. Yeah. I love that. And I think that's such a big part of it, is that, being seen in the process, right? And sharing in the process when you're talking about this my thought process was just that one [00:21:30] part where you're saying, There was this journey that your mom went through and do I want her life?
And it is true when our parents, my parents, same thing, right in their generation. When they first came here, they were facing a very different set of challenges. I. Their assimilation was the end goal, right? To be not seen was a good thing because you don't want to be seen too much because when you're seen too much, there's danger, there's risk.
What you want is stability. What you want is, to have that financial stability, raise a family and live the good life. That's [00:22:00] why they did all this work in immigrating here. I went through a process where I had to look at my parents and really be very grateful. And it's funny enough, 'cause this is something that you've mentioned before, is that finding the balance between gratitude and grief is also finding that gratefulness and gratitude for the sense that wow, they had to go through all of this, and as a result of them going through all this, I now have the ability now to see their imperfections and their imperfections.
Doesn't have to be based around good, bad moralization, but actually being like, [00:22:30] okay, I accept that this is where they're coming from. They weren't taught the same language of acceptance and love I've been taught by my environment, and that's the privilege that I get to see that in right. There's a quote that I really liked, and this was from John Adams, like an American, obviously one of the founding fathers.
I love this quote because he says, I must study politics and war that my sons, and, or children may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophies, and they must study mathematics and philosophies so that their children can study painting, poetry, music and tapestry. And I love [00:23:00] this quote because it's so true like our parents had to go through, The lessons that they did and hold those values that we may now have the ability to see intersectionality and wellness and health, and have the privilege of healing that trauma that they never got a chance to.
Yeah. I love that quote. I'd never heard that quote before, but that's so true, right? It is like every generation before. Paves the way for us. Actually, there's another quote I'll counter your quote with another quote. But it's from someone named dr. Robert Bullard.
And he says the fight for justice is a marathon [00:23:30] relay. And I relate that to your quote in the sense that we are always gonna be fighting for justice. And this is like with my social justice hat on, is we're always gonna be fighting for justice but when we hand off the baton, the world might look very different, but that next generation is still gonna be fighting, but the issues might look different.
Absolutely. That's deep. When you were coming out, this is such a big time, right? Like you are coming outta Georgetown. You have started your movement already and you went to Goldman Sachs to work. How did you know, what was the internal monologue like in deciding then to say, you know what I'm [00:24:00] going to walk away from what my parents taught me of Getting the good fin, the quote unquote stable financial job.
And, being quiet, being that, and I'm going to speak out about my experiences, I'm going to lead a social movement. How did you make that transition? Because I feel like a lot of people will be scared to it. It must be a terrifying process to step into the spotlight like that, both internally and externally.
Yeah, that's such a good question. And I will say that there was a period of time where along this journey of becoming this disability [00:24:30] advocate, the majority of the people who gave me really positive encouraging comments were identified as Asian. And they were like, I'm not disabled, but I'm so excited to see an Asian woman, like leading and being loud and sharing her story.
And again, because assimilation was the pathway to success. Like for my parents growing up I had never thought about. Whether I was Asian or not. But I think to come back to your question, I come into I call myself like an accidental disability advocate, like an accidental entrepreneur and an accidental community builder [00:25:00] because from a fundamental level, my core need that I was looking to solve when I started Diverse Ability was not, I'm gonna become the leader of this movement.
It was, I need friends. And I feel a lot of shame around a part of my body that I can't change. it's a permanent injury, and is there anyone else out there who has a story to share? Who has been told that? Or has internalized that they can't. So it's funny 'cause in the early days we got featured in like The Guardian and we were on Forbes [00:25:30] and the Wall Street Journal.
And one of the questions that the journalists often asked is, and what about your family? And I think in this journey of feeling so isolated and alone, in my experience, I actually wonder if I may have driven a wedge between And I don't talk about this a lot, so my mom, ' cause she had to work really hard to raise four kids.
Her work was actually in Taiwan, so she spent large amounts of time in Taiwan through those adolescent years. And I sometimes am now trying to reframe it, but I used to call my bedroom prison. It was the [00:26:00] only place in my home that I felt safe that I, wanted to be. And what's funny is I've gone back home a couple times and my last trip home, I was like, mom, I noticed that I don't have a desk in my room.
Where did I do my homework? she was like, oh, I don't know. And the fact that I didn't even have a desk in the room, that was the only place that I felt safe to get any work done. I actually think I did work on the floor. But I bring that up because I think that in those years after the car accident, I felt the depths of my aloneness, I was gonna say solitude, but like [00:26:30] solitude is like what I feel now when I'm alone because I have chosen to be alone.
And I felt disconnected from everyone. I have a couple funny like memories When one of my brothers would go away to summer camp, I like wrote a greeting card about how excited I was that he was away for the summer. And I have this other like thing where I had my sister sign, like a blank sheet of paper.
Then I wrote that it was like a contract that she would no longer be my sister, but I wanted to share those. I think as kids we're like all a little angsty and don't like our siblings in one way or another. But I think to me that just [00:27:00] highlights like how disconnected I felt from all of them.
So I think in response to your question around like that decision to speak up in spite of my family, I don't know. I just, and maybe this is like American individualism, but I just need this so desperately. And sometimes when I look back at the journey I remember where I was sitting the first time I shared the story of the car accident publicly.
And the tears that came out. And now, literally on every podcast I've been on, they get some version of the story and now it's in a TED [00:27:30] talk. and it provides context, right? And so now I share it because I'm like, there's an intentional reason why I'm sharing this story.
But before it was needing to heal through that and release pain of not feeling validated in that experience. But all of that to say, I think I just felt so alone up until that point. And oftentimes, even now, I look back at the past 25 years, I can't believe that girl became me.
Which is how you opened this podcast, how did she become you? And I wonder if part of it is just like brute force of this needs to get out. But I [00:28:00] also feel so liberated just being myself. and there are no secrets anymore around this experience and I validated it for me.
And so by sharing that story of the car accident, that has given me a lot more space to start to explore other parts of my story where might need to be some healing as well. And if you had an opportunity to go back to either talk to little 13 year old Tiffany or a 13 year old who is going through.
That same sense of loneliness. ' cause I think that the intention [00:28:30] behind, creating this podcast is so that we could talk to. Generation, the new generations and say, look, I mean you might experience the world in this sense of loneliness. You might feel like nobody else is going through what you're going through, but there are others and we have walked that path and this is what your future could look like.
What would you say to that, nine year old self, 13 year old self, whichever age, you know what would you say to that? That little girl, I. Yeah. The hard thing, because there's part of me that's oh, it's gonna get better when you're in it. It does [00:29:00] not feel like it at all. And I guess I'll share and then I'll answer the question. I'll share A good example is around affirmations. So I have a lot of friends who are like Tiffany, all you need is like positive affirmations. And the thing is, when you are caught in a trauma state, or even when you are living with P T S D like me, I can't positively affirm myself outta shit.
If I'm in a triggered state, I'm in it. that's the reality that I'm seeing the lens through. And so one thing that I did learn is instead of saying one positive affirmation you got this, or you are the best. But if I don't believe them, [00:29:30] actually, those aren't gonna work.
But instead I could say something like, you're doing the best you can, or you're on a path or you are here, do you see the difference in those types of affirmations? And so I think coming back to what message I would tell my nine year old self is, huh?
I don't know. It's gonna be really hard. I have a friend to a friend Aish, a I SS H, and she says, you have overcome a hundred percent of the obstacles that you've been through. To a nine year old, I don't think that would totally resonate. But even now, just looking back in terms of like when I'm [00:30:00] going through hard times, I just remember like all of the really hard times I went through and how every single day that passes is a new opportunity to make some progress out of getting out of that dark space.
I know I didn't really answer your question there, but I would just give her a hug. I would just give her a hug, honestly. In my family, like physical touch wasn't really a thing. And so I'd give her and this is, in my own Asian cultural context, but I'd give her a hug and I would just want her to feel the warmth my body and that she's being taken care of.
And I think in [00:30:30] retrospect now, coming back to like relationship with my mom, I feel like I didn't get the emotional support that I needed, but I can see all of the ways that she tried to give me support in other ways that have now led me to be able to do this. And so again, it comes back to this like compassion and respect for, It wa it was a hustle. It was a hustle for her. But because yeah I think I'll just pause there.
There was so much there I wanted to unpack. I know. I was like there's so much more stream of consciousness that I'm capable of. But yeah, I think a lot about nine year old Tiffany and my work, to be totally [00:31:00] honest, and I haven't quite figured out, and this is part of my own journey, is like, how can I give her the grace that she was nine years old?
The good news is she doesn't blame herself for anything, which I know sometimes that can happen in traumatic instances like that, but how can I let her know what's the equivalent of both the figurative and the literal hug that like, she's gonna be taken care of? Yeah. like what you said, which is that you're on the journey.
The worst has happened and this journey that you're on it's going to get better. But how do we, I think at that age, or even at any [00:31:30] age, how do we know, there's somebody who's listening to this right now, it could be in their thirties and feel like, Nope, this is it, this is as bad as it's gonna get.
But to know that it can get better is an acknowledgement. Yeah. I know you mentioned or you alluded to the. The spectrum of grief and gratitude. Yeah. And I actually remind myself of that quote a lot when I'm going through a hard time. Because if you're going through a hard time, it means that you have the capacity to be on the other side of that and have an amazing, incredible time.
Yeah. And to continue to think of life in terms of those dichotomies [00:32:00] of and maybe that's what I would tell nine year old Tiffany is I know you feel really alone right now, but that also shows how much you have the capacity to be in community. And I literally built one, yeah.
But it's also like I had to have that experience of feeling so deeply alone to be able to know what it's like to be surrounded by people who just love and celebrate and support you. I love that.
Are there any other stories I love the space for stories. Are there any other stories that you feel like you would like to share?
You said something interesting about the worst has happened[00:32:30] and I think in like 2017, or maybe even 2019 or 2018, sorry, too many years, but I experienced a level of heartbreak that I thought was like the worst ever. And I think one of the things I keep reminding myself of is even though a lot of people, look at this story of the car accident and think what a horrific thing for a nine year old kid to go through.
Which I agree. watch. My old TED Talk or even, different talks where I'm recounting the car accident, I'll cry because I literally can't believe that nine-year-old Tiffany went through that. But at the same [00:33:00] time, like that's the fascinating thing about life is that it's not just that one story that happened 25 years ago.
There have been so many other stories the fascinating thing is like at nine years old, because I was a minor, My mom was my guardian, right? And in 2016, so six years ago I was walking down the street in San Francisco and ended up getting attacked randomly. Oh my gosh.
And I remember being not only really shocked, but now I was 28. And was it Just somebody [00:33:30] who just randomly to it. It was but have you followed the past I don't know, the past year of all of the random and I'm not laughing 'cause I don't, I'm laughing because I think I, I wanna add like a level of levity to all conversations.
but I will say when that traumatic thing happened of being. It wasn't premeditated or anything by being attacked randomly. Who knew if it was Asian related, but we feel it. Yeah. Because we know what we look like. Yeah. I just remember the way that I healed through that. Felt very different from nine year old [00:34:00] trauma The nine Yearold. In the sense that now I was an adult and had the agency to seek mental health support, go to a doctor or file a police report. And don't know, I wanted to share that because our lives are just, Gonna continue to be filled with stories and stories that test us.
Yeah. And even though I can say yes, I've overcome the adversity that happened 25 years ago, I was still a kid who was like protected by my parent and now as an adult, like now I have the agency [00:34:30] to take control of because when I was nine, I feel like my narrative was still controlled or someone else Was making most of my decisions. Yeah. And now I'm an adult. And so now going through hard things. I don't have the same coping mechanisms that I did 25 years ago when I had my mom taking care of everything. And I just wanted to use this opportunity to like highlight that nuance is that we're still gonna go through hard things.
But now, Yeah it's strange. And this is part of the work in progress too, which is at nine years old, I can have a lot of compassion for [00:35:00] her. And at 34, sometimes I'll go through some things and I'll be a lot less compassionate because I'm an adult and can make my own decisions.
But how do I still have that level of care and compassion for a nine year old Tiffany and have some of that for 34, 4 year old Tiffany too. I love that. we're, you're right. The stories never really stop. The struggle will always come. We're always going to face, we can't control what we can't control.
We can't control that people may attack us. And these things are unfortunately happening more and more. Hopefully by speaking out, we can stem it or we could mitigate the amount of [00:35:30] growth that it goes through. A big part of it is taking into our own individual agency and being able to say life doesn't always happen to me.
Sometimes it can happen for me by me or through me. So we could take ownership over it. Yeah. That's amazing. I will share something that happened yesterday. As I'm traveling and recording this from a hotel room, but Yeah. It was a little bit late at night and I had grabbed a late night bite to eat with my partner.
And someone came out who had a little bit too much to drink and was getting like a ride home. And there was it was a woman and there was a man with her. And then I [00:36:00] saw three other women come out of the bar who maybe I think were either staff or worked there. And they just confirmed to make sure that she knew who the man was and the man was her boyfriend.
But As we were talking about Stop Asian hate, like for me to see like that level of like just checking in on someone and making sure the situation is okay is like what I'm hoping to see like at scale. That made me really reassured to see something like that where like I had too much to drink and if I'm with someone.
They wanna make sure that I actually know that [00:36:30] person, so yeah, so just thinking of the role of bystanders, I think we just made a whole sidebar to a totally different topic, but yeah I think that At least in that scenario, and by speaking out more about anti-Asian violence that is happening, we'll start to see more situations where the bystanders actually do come in and ask questions and hopefully deescalate situations.
I love that. And it is true. we are in a community and we're stronger when we're united, right? Like when we stand up for one another and when we are there fighting for one another collectively, we just, we become stronger. And with all the [00:37:00] work in all the positive printing on the world, how do our listeners best support what you're currently working on?
Yeah, that's a good question. I will say before the original aspa, we were still fundraising for the endowment fund, was that if you had the means to support the endowment fund. But I will say you can follow all of the different things that I'm working on across my social media channels at I'm Tiffany U.
That's the letter I, the letter m. I first and last name. And then you can follow all the work that Diversibility is doing. Advocacy events. We're always looking for sponsorships and [00:37:30] different partners. You can follow us across diversibility. That's amazing. And of course if you can donate please do.
And if you can spread the word, then please do. it literally is just what we're talking about. We are a community and when we are supporting one another, the rising tide raises all ships and this is where we're trying to get more united. Yeah. Thank you so much. Oh yeah. Can I say one thing?
Yep. I'll say it has been really cool over the last couple of years to. Get an opportunity to get more plugged into Asian communities, like what we're doing right now. No and you [00:38:00] laugh, but there was a long period of time where I was doing this disability work and weren't really that embraced within disability, within Asian communities.
And I think that comes back to that intersectionality that I talked about before where a disability identity previously was discriminated against and was seen as shameful. And now I'm seeing a lot more conversations at this. Particular intersection of being Asian and disabled.
So I really appreciate an opportunity to get to share my story and my work with your community and hopefully, do some [00:38:30] cross-pollinating across all of our different communities as well. Absolutely. And just to give you a little bit of a context, when you responded back to us and you said you're interested in doing the thing?
I had a really great day. I was actually, really excited because I think that this is, we're talking about generations, right? I think Asian Americans have been portrayed in one generation. Of what they were it was exactly the kind of our parents and our grandparents.
And that generation of early stage, there is a perception of what was right and what is accepted. And I think that we're seeing [00:39:00] this new generation stepping forward, who are not afraid to get loud, who are not afraid to speak up and on all the issues. And it is intersectional, like Asian American is such a complex, multi-dimensional.
Community, we're huge. We're 20 million strong, right? Like it's massive. And within us, all the voices that I think contribute to it, and every single time we bring on a diversity in our voice, we actually become way more encompassing and way more powerful as a result. So Once again so thankful and so excited to share this episode with us with our audience.
And [00:39:30] yeah, thank you very much. Go check out Tiffany uses website. We're gonna put it into the episode notes. Definitely go check out all the things that she's doing and continuous support her mission. Thank you so much for your time today, Tiffany. Thank you.
