“This space was a refuge. I didn’t know until I found myself in this circle of compassion and acceptance that my ancestral wounds that I’ve held for so long were ready to surface, to be seen, and begin to heal.”

-Fumi Tosu, 45 years old, Founder of Dandelion House Catholic Worker, Portland, OR, Cis-Male Japanese

“No words can express how much gratitude and love I feel. This experience happened at the right time for me and brought me out of a dark place I felt like I couldn’t get out of. Everything about this experience was spot on. We dug deep and this was just what I needed.”

— Seena Chan, 20 years old, Cis-Female Cambodian

16 participants from the 2024 Asian Diaspora jam are in a circle outside, smiling with their hands in the center in an ‘all in’ moment

Friends, Family, Community and Collaborators!

We invite you to join us in the 5th Asian Diaspora Jam, which brings together 30 changemakers from the diverse Asian community landscape. Given the polarization, breakdown, and many challenges of the present moment, let’s gather to reflect on our identities and build bridges together, to support each other and grow our collective wisdom, and draw upon more of our Asian heritages and practices to guide our forward momentum for co-liberation. Together, we create a supportive space to explore our connection to ancestry, our roles in and relationships to social justice movements, and what it takes to heal our relationships with one another as peoples of Asian descent who have some intersection with North America. 

THIS JAM IS FOR YOU BECAUSE…

This Jam is for anyone who has considered their place in North America as a person of Asian descent.  We welcome anyone who has grappled with, proudly embraced, or questioned an Asian identity.

This Jam will explore questions such as…

• What’s alive for me with my Asian American / Asian Diasporic identity?
• How do I relate to the paradox, complexity, and liberatory possibility of being Asian in North America?
• How am I healing with and from the complexities of family and community in my life? How am I navigating the many life experiences I have had?
• What is the difference between appropriation and honoring Asian Diaspora ancestral wisdom and practices, and how do I participate or distance myself from them?
• How can our connections form the foundation for powerful collective movements toward healing and transformative justice?
• How does my Asian identity relate to my contributions in the world?
  

Have you grappled with these or other questions? If so, you’re not alone!
What are your questions? Bring them to the JAM.
We invite you to be with us. Join us at the Asian Diaspora Jam, where we will co-create a space of support, mystery, and revelation.

29 participants of the 2024 Asian Diaspora Jam gather outside on the grass under a Cherry Blossom tree. There are 3 rows of people, some standing, some kneeling, some finger hearting, all smiling, in close warm proximity to each other,

One participant stands on a wooden platform, overlooking the redwood forest. One of the redwoods in front of them has fallen, while they are surrounded by many more standing trees. The sun is shining in streams across the photo.

WHAT IS A JAM?

For over 25 years, more than 200+ YES! Jams have happened all over the world, on six continents and online. Modeled in the spirit of a musicians’ jam, they are co-created spaces of visionaries and changemakers, bringing together many voices, stories, energies, purposes, skills and inspirations to become something more than the sum of our parts.

Jams work on three levels of change & transformation:

1. The Internal. A place for each one of us to explore our own journeys and histories, to heal our individual wounds and to come into our most authentic selves so that we can better fulfill our unique purpose.
2. The Interpersonal. We are harmed in relationships, so we must heal in relationships. We come together to share our collective journeys, our cultures, our ways of grieving and our ways of healing, our histories of struggle and our stories of resilience.
3. The Systemic. Our individual identities and our collective stories are molded in a larger context. By becoming clearer about how these systems influence our lives, we can have a larger impact in the broader world around us.

Thank you for opening my heart and allowing me to experience beautiful connections, radical intimacy, and sweet collective care. I felt so seen and so loved. I experienced so many moments of joy and creative expression. So many moments of deep healing. So many moments of courageous vulnerability. So many heartwarming moments. It was truly magical and I am so grateful for this truly transformative experience.

-Jannat Zahoor, 32 years old, Psychotherapist, Albany, CA, Queer Pakistani-American, 

A NOTE ON THE USE OF Asian Diaspora

We are using the broad term Asian Diaspora as a complex identity and organizing framework. Our intention to co-create a welcoming and meaningful space is combined with our intention to include as many as possible who want to be here. However, we recognize that identity can have deep personal, interpersonal, and systemic significance and it is very easy to flatten and essentialize the very complex, unresolved, and conflicting histories within our communities.

With Asian Diaspora, we welcome (and are not limited to) anyone who identifies as East / South / Southeast / West / Central Asian; Filipinx; indigenous to these areas; stateless; and/or part of a diasporic community with multiple migrations. We welcome adoptees, refugees, people with mixed and multiracial ancestries, and individuals with any or no immigration status in North America. We have deliberately chosen to make this an Asian Diaspora Jam, rather than an Asian Pacific Islander Jam as it was named in the past. We are taking the lead from Pacific Islander (also known as Pasifika) community leaders, who want PI to be disaggregated from Asian Americans in order to speak truth to the reality of the Pacific Islander experience. For more information on this important distinction, please check this out.  

We, too, know the heartbreak of feeling invisible in spaces where our hearts wanted so much to be seen. So we are sincere about imagining this space as one in which both ease and challenges regarding “Asian Diaspora” identity can be explored and engaged with gentleness and curiosity, if those questions are present for you. And we are still exploring whether “Asian Diaspora” is the right framing for this Jam. So we hope you will join us with wonder and openness to consider what this Jam could be in the future!

“The door that has opened has revealed possibilities beyond my imagination. Since the jam, I am realizing many dreams that I had seeded years ago, and I believe it is through my vulnerable listening that they have been offered to me by spirit. Thank you for creating a space in which I could decompose and be pushed in so many ways that the only response left was to explode into right alignment with all that I am.

-Kylie Tseng,30 years old, creator of cattailscomix.com, Oakland, CA, Queer Southern Chinese

Six participants are sitting and squeezing to fit on a couch, arms around each other and smiling

I STILL DON’T GET IT. WHAT ARE WE GONNA BE DOING?

A Jam is a co-creative container. It’s going to be built and shaped by all of us with the support of a facilitant team (facilitators who are also participants).  A Jam is not a conference, it is not a training, it is not group therapy, and it is not a typical gathering.  

Our community will not have a rigid agenda. Instead, the team of organizers and facilitators will draw from all of your applications and from what’s alive in them, put all of it in a big pot, stir them around and come up with a draft flow of experiential activities and see what comes out!  None of us come with all of the answers. Instead, we will co-create the space together — using circles, conversations, embodiment, time in nature, explorations of interconnectedness, artistic expression, silence, and play — to explore our questions, bring more of our whole selves, and live into our answers, and new questions (!), using the depth and power of the experiences and knowledge in the room and beyond. 

“Thank you again for cracking open the space that is my heart. I feel a part of my Asian family. This jam was about giving myself space and permission to be fully in myself, my gifts, my wants, and my needs.”

-Salma, 34 years old, Art Therapist, El Prado, NM, Cis-Female Afro-Punjabi

DATES, LOCATION, TIMING & COSTS

The Jam will begin at 2PM Pacific Time on Tuesday, April 1st, and end with clean-up on Sunday, April 6th wrapping up before noon. There will be a lot of opportunities to connect through one-on-ones, participant-led open optional sessions, and fun community games that we will play together throughout the week.  We recommend leaving as much space and time as possible this week to fully sync in and fully JAM!  We promise, the more space and time you give yourself this week, the more you will bring to and receive from the Jam.  

The Asian Diaspora Jam will take place at the Ben Lomond Quaker Center, near Santa Cruz, CA. Participants will share rooms in doubles and triples.

Tuition for the Jam is offered on a sliding scale of $350-$1500, with the at-cost price being $1000. Broken down, $500 covers food, lodging and supplies, and $500 covers honoraria for the organizers and facilitants. We invite you to give what you can, and to give generously. Any amount above the at-cost amount of $1000 helps us provide scholarships to support the broad spectrum of participation on which this event thrives (and is tax-deductible). 

We never want money to be a barrier in participating: We will do everything we can to make it work for you to attend. Partial scholarships are available. We are also happy to work with you on a payment plan. 

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to write to us at asiandiasporajam[at]gmail.com.

Four participants of the 2024 Asian Diaspora jam are cuddled and laughing together, three of them under a blanket and the fourth leaning on them.

I’M IN! WHAT’S NEXT?

APPLY TODAY!

WHO IS PUTTING THIS JAM ON?

We can’t wait to Jam with you!

Forest, Kazu, LiZhen, Minna, Nandita, Rishi & Shilpa