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New York City, U.S.A
A feeling all too common among us, as we witness the many injustices of this world, is powerlessness. Yet, we do have power, and there are actions we can take – some simple or indirect, some which change the trajectory of our lives.
North Six asked two people, who've let the desire for change alter their lives, to give their perspectives on civic engagement, and what brought them into careers that serve the public good.
The first is one of New York’s newly-elected assembly members, Grace Lee. She was already a socially-minded entrepreneur, who ran an all-natural hair and skin care line for pregnant women, a business that emerged from her MBA. But, it seems, a more formal political life was calling – through former classmates she got involved in Planned Parenthood and Swing Left (an organization aimed at flipping Republican seats), and through other friends in a effort to clean up a brownfield site across from her kids’ school. It’s an energy that led her to run for state legislature – first in 2020, and then again, successfully, in 2022.
The second is Raj Pannu, who runs Emergence, a communications agency with the motto “Creativity for the Common Good”, and a focus on helping clients within the global health, environmental sustainability, and scaleable social impact spaces. Before that he was working in advertising in New York for McCann. But – despite working with clients such as the United Nations, USAID and the State Department – felt the constraints of the corporate mentality and, living in U.S. without citizenship, had to find novel ways to make an impact.
R:
When you look at the history of the United States and the civil rights movement and everything… I would say that we grew up in a time [in the 1980s and ‘90s] where there was this theory that somehow we're at the end of history and all good things were happening.
Then, right when I moved to the United States – I came right after 9/11 and moved to New York – it was a really, really strange time. Because coming from the relatively tranquil, somewhat rural place that I come from in western Canada, coming into the big city where people like me were suddenly looked upon very, very suspiciously – that was like a huge wake-up call.
At the time, I wasn't an American citizen and I couldn't vote or anything. There was no way to express my disgust with what was happening, both from the ultra-nationalist standpoint but also from the way the US government, quite frankly, was speaking about the world. It was really horrifying, Orwellian thing that I found myself in. Myself and a bunch of Canadian friends, we decided that we were going to do something about it. We did the only thing that we could think of, which was raise money and start putting on theatrical productions. We started an off-Broadway show where we had basically translated an Israeli play about the cycle of violence and retribution in the Middle East, called Retzach. I was an actor, at the time.
That was the first step towards me thinking "What needs to be done in this world and how do we do it?", because I was also working at McCann and it was very corporate. The epiphany to work in social impact came to me around the same time as you, Grace, because I was working and very unhappy with just being a corporate person.
Then COVID is interesting because it really revealed a lot of huge issues. For example, you talk about the specific issue of violence against Asians. Certainly, it's been there before, but boy, did Covid – particularly from discourse coming directly from the top of this country – really amplify that vitriol.
I would say that the Trump administration, honestly it took this concept that we had of an agency and it just lit a fire under it because so many people, as you’ve said, were trying to begin to participate. Participation became important. You saw a lot movement into philanthropy. I don't know if you remember this when it was the Muslim ban, people gave hundreds of millions of dollars to the ACLU, and things like this. There were so many different dimensions to how people began to engage in different ways.
G:
I think what you said about seeing the activism from the Muslim community or the Chinese American, Korean American communities, or any of these other marginalized communities at a time when we were really being targeted, that was maybe the one silver lining out of all of this. That has really activated and awakened us. At least I was not raised to really raise my voice. I was raised as a Korean American daughter of immigrants, "Put your head down. Don't complain too much. Work really hard. Just study. Get good grades. Be successful."
I think that two events were pretty earth-shattering for me last year when I was running for office, and it was the death of both Michelle Go and Christina Yuna Lee. A lot of it was because I could see so much of myself in them. They're both young, professional women who had fallen in love with the city and were going about their daily lives, things that I do every single day, and unprovoked, had been attacked and killed. Christina was a resident in my district. Really, it hit home, very close to home.
You realize that despite all of our success, all of our hard work, that doesn't make us immune from racism, from hate, from other types of violence.
R:
I was the same. There's a lot of pressure to become a professional person and do well financially. I would say sadly, a lot of that takes people out of their responsibilities in civic engagement.
I would say, I worry about the impact of organizations. I think from the philanthropy, nonprofit side, it's hard for me to tell how impactful some of these organizations are.
Even though I do all these what I would consider to be pretty high-profile things – what actual tangible impact am I actually having on society, other than popularizing things and maybe driving money towards things? I don't know, and it bothers me.
G:
Yes. Since doing that work down in the seaport, I ended up getting involved in a few other organizing efforts in my community, helping deaf tenants fight against a really abusive landlord. They had no voice and had been just living in really deplorable conditions. A lot of that on-the-ground grassroots organizing has been a really good lesson for me in making an execution.
R:
It's so hard.
G:
Yes. The execution piece is the hardest piece. I actually would be really interested to hear more, because of your advertising background, how you think about representation in advertising and in media?
R:
On the most basic level, you can see it's definitely happening in culture and that's a wonderful thing to see. Partly because media is so fragmented. People are making their own content.
I'm very skeptical about different forms of media, but at the same time, one of the best things that's happened is that you can see the vast diversity of voices that's coming out. You're seeing it on the big stage and Oscar nominations and all that stuff. It's really about time so I think that's awesome.
Particularly on the representation front and on the identity front, I feel like the good guys, the good people, are winning the culture war – even though quite frankly women's rights and abortion and things like that are getting challenged in all these courts. But I do think, ultimately, I'm optimistic. I have to say, in general, I'm more optimistic now than I was in 2016 which was a very dark period. Do you feel the same way?
G:
Oh, for sure, yes. Definitely feel that. This year we can just look at our state legislature. We elected the first Filipino American to the state legislature. We elected the first Nepali American to the state legislature. We've got the first Asian American woman in the state senate. A total of 10 Asian American Pacific Islander legislators. There's more to go but we see these trends of representation.
One thing I do have to say though, is things don't happen in a vacuum. I believe that the work that Asian leaders do in other industries helps me too. Because when people are successful and do well and use their voices to help their communities, whatever industry they're in, people see that. I don't represent a majority Asian district, yet the people of this district looked at me, a daughter of Korean immigrants, an Asian American woman, and said, "Hey, she can represent me."
R:
Absolutely.
