Mercer has promoted three Pacific-based colleagues to partner. The newly appointed partners include Jillian Reid, Chi Tran and Tricia Nguyen, who work across Mercer’s sustainable investments,
On the sixth anniversary of Chicago’s reparations ordinance, local activists and scholars discussed police abolition, collective approaches to community organizing and healing from state violence in a Thursday discussion.
The event, hosted by the Council for Race and Ethnic Studies in its inaugural spring speaker event “Abolitionist Futures,” was moderated by Asian American Studies Prof. Patricia Nguyen.
The discussion and Q&A featured founder of Black Lives Matter Chicago and co-executive director of the Chicago Torture Justice Center Aislinn Pulley, and Prof. Dylan Rodriguez, who teaches media and cultural studies at the University of California at Riverside.
The conversation began with an acknowledgement of Chicago’s reparations legislation anniversary and the role of community organizing, especially from incarcerated individuals and police violence survivors, in the passage of the historic law.
Starting off the keynote conversation in Queertopia on Sunday, writer and comedian Lexi Adsit said trans women of color possess powers of world-changing and world-thinking.
Adsit compiled an anthology starting last year titled “Paradise on the Margins: Lessons and Dreams from Trans Women of Color.” At the event, Adsit emphasized Black trans womens’ founding of organizations that ensure community survival.
“That’s the kind of work that I want to lift up and recognize, and there’s so many incredible stories and individuals that are just making the world a better place,” Adsit said.
Over the weekend, Queer Pride Graduate Student Association hosted its 14th annual Queertopia, a conference that celebrates queer scholarship from a wide range of disciplines.
Axis Lab interprets intersectionality, Asian American identity through arts and mutual aid
When Asian American studies Prof. Patricia Nguyen co-founded Axis Lab in 2015, she felt as though she inherited the organization.
Even though the Argyle-based mutual aid and arts group is less than a decade old, Nguyen said she drew a lot of knowledge from her father, who has organized in the district for more than 40 years.
“(The nonprofit) that I co-founded is actually one that wouldn’t have been possible without my father,” Nguyen said. “Even though it’s run by a lot of us millennials, it’s actually an intergenerational project.”