Sticky Rice Project: Uniting Asian Americans Through
Anti-Racist Education (TSRP)

History

The founders of TSRP, Sophia Kim, Eun-Joung Lee, and Judy Tso, met at an Undoing Racism Workshop facilitated by the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond from New Orleans in February, 2001. In a room of about fifty, they were three of about five Asian Pacific Americans (APA) present, and they felt that the experiences of APA's and immigrants were missing from this analysis of racism. They came together in deep discussion and in addition to wanting to expand and complicate the black-white paradigm of racism, they also so saw the need for bringing this systemic analysis to the APA community.

Mission

As grassroots activists and organizers, we aim to function as “sticky rice” in the Boston APA community and within the overall antiracism community. As “sticky rice,” we seek to act as facilitators, brokers, networkers, organizers, human links to inspire groups to strategically collaborate, partner, combine and join resources and forces in order to build a more powerful movement to undo racism in our society. We need to act more powerfully to be able to be a viable political force.

Goals

Through workshops and discussions, The Sticky Rice Project works toward the following:

• To bring a systems analysis of racism to the Asian American community
• To provide interactive workshops from an Asian American perspective including  expanding the black-white model to include Asian American experiences;
• To develop a series of workshops that would help the Asian American community confront, learn about, and deal with racism and oppression; an
• To reach out to a wider community of both anti-racist activists and of individuals interested in learning more about the impact of racism on all of us.

The Project is funded by Fleet Bank Asian Resource Group, the Foley Hoag Foundation, Haymarket People’s Fund and participant donations.

If you are interested in having the workshop at your school or non-profit in the Boston area, please email AARW.

For Sticky Rice workshops outside of Boston, email Judy Tso.