‘Please listen’: Here’s what AAPI storytellers want you to know

A filmmaker, a poet, an artist and an actress on the power of AAPI storytelling.

“That’s the power of storytelling” and social media, said Tran, a 28-year-old Vietnamese American filmmaker, “to shine light on stories that are so often ignored, even if it’s in front of our faces. It took a pandemic to stand out on the curb to learn something like this, when it’s been two doors down from me this entire time.”

Amid a rise in hate crimes and violence against Asian Americans during the pandemic, storytelling has mattered more than ever to Tran. In March, she began filming a short documentary, “In The Visible,” with her friend and director Natasha Lee. They were in the middle of filming in March when eight people, including six Asian women, were killed in shootings at three Atlanta-area spas. The shootings ignited a national reckoning over anti-Asian hate — and a conversation among the Asian American community.

By Janay Kingsberry, The Washington Post, The Lily