“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, 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, 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!

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.

30 participants of the 2025 Asian Diaspora Jam gather outside on the grass. There are 3 rows of people, some standing, some kneeling, all smiling and in close 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 35 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, 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!

“I could spend a lifetime at the jam and I am nourished for a lifetime. This was meant to be — an unforgettable experience. Each connection I made is a cherished moment and I witnessed all of our stories being woven into a collective story. We are all music and we played such a beautiful symphony.”

• David Abad, 35 years old, Ilocano and Bakla, based in Juneau, Alaska

 

“You have changed me and I am ecstatic to be changed. In a handful of days, you have transformed me more than the last several years. The Jam has cracked me open and raw. I have written pages to my experience here and I will carry it all into every interaction I have and no explanation will do this time justice.”

• Kc Castaneda, 28 years old, Storyteller, Author, Community builder, Filipino American

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, Afro-Punjabi

“Thank you for opening up my heart to sense blockages that keep me from being whole. The Asian Liberation tradition lives within my ancestors, us as a community, me. It is profound to feel my ancestors healing through me, and to forgive the decisions they made to survive, so my descendants and I can be restored into right relationship with Mama Earth and all of life.”

-Veryl Pow, 37 years old, attorney at Sustainable Economies Law Center, Chinese American

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.

DATES, LOCATION, TIMING

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.

The Jam will begin at 2 PM Pacific Time on Tuesday, March 31st, and end with clean-up on Sunday, April 5th 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.  

COSTS 

Tuition for the Jam is offered on a sliding scale of $375-$1,600, with the at-cost price being $1,100. Broken down, $600 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 $1,100 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.

Five participants of the 2025 Asian Diaspora jam are squeezed together on a couch, laughing and roaring like dragons.

I’M IN! WHAT’S NEXT?

APPLY TODAY!

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

We can’t wait to Jam with you!

Rishi, Forest, LiZhen, Kazu, Nandita & Minna