Stories Within (sponsored by Austin Asian American Film Festival)

Stories Within is a community-led and created project from Austin, TX created in the aftermath of the March 2021 Georgia Asian Spa Shootings and during a heightened time of the pandemic-related rise in hate crimes against Asians. With the support of established local arts nonprofit Austin Asian American Film Festival and Unraval Productions, the project expansion will include training and production resources for other AAPI communities in Texas to create their own video series, a traveling exhibit in 2022, and an educational toolkit adapted for all ages to participate and engage in narrative storytelling using prompts based on the series.

Here's the Issue:

Texas has the third-largest AAPI population in the country and is the fourth-highest in reported anti-Asian hate incidents. One of the first reported incidents of COVID-related anti-Asian hate also occurred in Midland, Texas in March of 2020 where a man attacked and slashed at an Asian American father and his 2 young children at a Sam’s Club. However, national responses and organizing around Stop Asian Hate initiatives typically are clustered around the East and West Coasts, where there are older and larger established Asian American communities. Increased representation of AAPI stories in states like Texas is essential as part of the history and fabric of Asian Americana.

The creative team behind AAPI Stories Within worked with AAAFF on focused discussions with community leaders and filmmakers to bring this project to fruition at a high production value using personal narratives of local community members from diverse ethnic and social backgrounds.

Our Solution:

After the shootings in Georgia that left 6 Asian women dead, a collaborative of Asian American leaders in Austin teamed up to film a series of videos in response to the past year’s rise in anti-Asian racism and hate crimes. We have since refined the initial #StopAsianHate PSA concept into Stories Within.

Along with releasing the series in the local Austin community, this project demands us to expand and grow throughout the state of Texas to reach over 1.6 million Asian Texans. We are developing an impact program replicating the project model so community partners and AAPI filmmakers in other Texas cities can team up to create their own Stories Within videos with personal narratives from local participants. Our goal is not only to broadcast the diversity and strength of the AAPI population in Texas but also to respond to these acts of violence through community and storytelling.

We're the right people to do the work because:

The Stories Within project team and advisory board include leaders from our AAPI community organizations such as – Asian Family Support Services of Austin, UT Center for Asian American Studies, Asian American Quality of Life Commission, Asian American Community Health Initiative, Asian American Communities Civic Coalition and more. Our commitment to community input throughout the process of the project is a significant core value. Paired with film industry experts Unraval Pictures and BEAST editorial house, we pair important social issues with high production value.

Our fiscal sponsor and programmatic partner, Austin Asian American Film Festival, has been a prominent fixture in the local Austin Asian American art scene championing films that speak to and enhance understanding of the AAPI experience. Their work throughout the years includes not only an annual film festival but also year-round presentations, AAPI filmmaker network, and participation in our Austin-area Cultural Arts community.

Manisha G. Bewtra, AICP

Planning, Mobility, and Development Advisor to Tucson Mayor Regina Romero

Manisha Bewtra, AICP (she/her) is Mayor Romero’s Planning, Mobility, and Development Advisor. In this role, she leverages her passion for planning for thriving, healthy, and inclusive communities with her love for policy-making and politics as the Mayor’s liaison on transportation and land use issues. Manisha is an experienced public process facilitator and project manager and works collaboratively with the Mayor’s team and city departments to apply an equity lens to all city initiatives.
Manisha has built her career on bringing divergent perspectives together, facilitating conversations around change, and generating data-informed solutions that move communities forward. She is driven by public service and champions equitable policies and inclusive community engagement.
Prior to her current role, she worked at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council in Boston as a senior regional planner and the manager of the analytics team, at the Massachusetts Housing Partnership where she was a statewide technical assistance provider, as an adjunct city planning instructor for Master’s degree program courses at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and at Arizona State University, and in municipal government and nonprofit community development organizations in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Chandler, Arizona.
Manisha has served on various equity-focused organizations and committees and is a graduate of Emerge Massachusetts, the Initiative for Diversity in Civic Leadership, and the Massachusetts Commonwealth Seminar, three organizations dedicated to training underrepresented groups to influence public policy and to run for office. She has a Master of City Planning degree from the University of Pennsylvania, a BA in Economics and Art from The University of Iowa, and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners. She currently serves as a member at large for the American Planning Association Arizona Southern Section and is a member of the executive team for the Asian American and Political Islander Caucus for the Arizona Democratic Party.
Before moving to Tucson in the summer of 2020, she lived in the Boston area for twelve years. During her years in Melrose, Massachusetts, she served as a Human Rights Commissioner and subsequently as a City Councilor. When elected to the Melrose City Council, she became the first person of color ever to serve in elected office in Melrose. She grew up in Iowa and identifies as Desi/Indian-American. She, her husband, and her son felt welcomed and right at home in Tucson when they moved here – even in spite of a pandemic and searing summer heat.

Arnie Saiki

research, writer, program director

Broadly focusing on regional economic and geopolitical themes in the Asia and Pacific regions, Arnie Saiki is currently leading a working group on data, statistics and valuation in the Pacific. His book “Economic and Ecological Accounting: Towards Intemerate Values,” was published last year by the Pacific Conference of Churches, the Pacific Theological College and the University of the South Pacific.

Since the publication, this campaign has been introduced to the Ecological and Economic Justice program at the World Council of Churches and he is participating in a G8 Interfaith forum for the inclusion of Wellbeing indicators into our economic accounts.

While national statistics and ecological accounting normally fall under the purview of government, academic or international institutions, Arnie has been campaigning in democratizing our ecological data, seeking support for a proof-of-concept accounting program that would enable poor, impacted, and indigenous peoples to actively participate in how we account for our socio and economic biodiversity. Intemerate Accounting is an equation that helps to correct accounting disparities that have, to a large extent, excluded the Global South. Revising our accounting system can provide access and opportunities that cross wide campaign sectors, bringing hope, action and efficacy to reverse climate change, restore our ecological biodiversity, and redistribute global wealth more equitably.

Arnie has been actively promoting and working on global justice campaigns since 2007 when he received a “We the People” grant from the Hawai’i Council of the Humanities for his work on Hawai’i Statehood. He has organized conferences with Hawaiian national independence groups, managed the Save Rapanui campaign after the Chilean military forced a lockdown of Easter Islanders. Arnie spoke at the World Bank representing the Pacific Island Forum, and participated in discussions around regionalism in the Pacific. He was recently appointed the US-Pacific Diplomacy and Solidarity Mission for the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), and is on the management team of the Deep Seabed Mining Campaign.

In 2011, Arnie received the blessing from Dr. Kekuni Blaisdell to organize a counter-conference in Honolulu while APEC was there and coordinated the Moana Nui conferences, an international partnership between the International Forum on Globalization and Pua Mohala I Ka Po. For the last ten years he has been campaigning on issues around trade, development, ecological resources, indigenous issues and militarization in the Pacific.

His essays, “TPP at the End of the Line: a briefing on economic cooperation and capacity building” was published in American Quarterly by John Hopkins University Press, and “Manifesting the Liquid Continent,” was published by Yunnan National University, as part of the 1st International conference on Asia and Pacific Ethnology and Anthropology.