Huanvy Phan '20
APIENC is a grassroots organization that builds queer and transgender API power through leadership development, community building, intergenerational work, and more. This summer, I participated in APIENC’s Summer Organizer Program with five other young emerging leaders where we got to learn the tools to create change and build the world we want to see. Together, we participated in leadership development retreats, marched with over 300 people in the API contingent of SF Trans March, and coordinated a grassroots fundraiser that raised over $11,000. My personal project was to build a team of community members to collectively formulate a long-term data analysis strategy for the largest ever Bay Area Transgender/Gender Non-Conforming API Needs Assessment.
APIENC has given me a political home where I feel held and loved in all my identities – I never have to hide or sacrifice a part of myself to feel like I belong. I learned so many organizing and life skills, from coordinating a community security team to making strong asks for help. Beyond that, I built strong relationships with new people who have become my best friends, spent a lot of time cooking and singing karaoke, and even got matching tattoos with my cohort. After the summer, I joined APIENC Core where we use community values to make organizational decisions and guide the direction of APIENC’s work.
We live in a society of scarcity that tells us that there’s limited people, time, resources, and capacity. But APIENC has shown me so much abundance and I now know that there is enough and WE are enough. We have all that we need to create sustainable social change and build a world where we can be free.