For immediate release: January 25, 2022
Media contact: media@napawf.org

Washington, D.C. – On January 24th, Asian American woman-owned beauty brands cocokind and Tower 28, National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF), along with Asian American Girl Club, kicked off a Lunar New Year’s event to raise awareness and uplift the experiences of  Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities. Over 100+ AAPI mega and micro-influencers attended the virtual event featuring a conversation between actor, investor, and activist Olivia Munn, and NAPAWF executive director Sung Yeon Choimorrow.

“While hosting a gathering of AAPI women and allies about how to stop anti-Asian hate, we were targeted by a Zoom bombing of horrific, violent, racially charged images and audio,” said Munn. “Despite it momentarily disrupting our event, we later resumed because these malicious acts will not stop the conversation.”

The virtual gathering shut down after it was Zoom bombed with vulgar images and anti-Asian hate speech. The discussion resumed 15 minutes later where attendees rejoined the conversation. 

“It comes as no surprise that Zoom bombing can target communities having conversations about racism and misogyny. Even in a space created by us and for us, the very things we were talking about happened while we talked about it,” said Choimorrow. “There is so much work that still needs to be done and unfortunately it often falls on the back of women of color. But we will not let the hate directed at us deter us from building our collective power as AAPI women.”

“The only way I know how to get through it and process what happened is through community,” said Priscilla Tsai, Founder of cocokind and the organizer behind yesterday’s virtual gathering. “We are all AAPI leaders and this is the perfect example of us needing to make space for each other. And for us to really make a pledge that we are not going to be silent. We’re not going to let something like this happen to us and retreat.”

“We came together with such great intentions and ended up becoming victims of hate. But we will fight back and we will hold space again,” said Amy Liu, Founder of Tower 28. “What happened yesterday only underscores why it’s so important to advocate for each other and our communities.”

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The National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF) is the only multi-issue, progressive, community organizing and policy advocacy organization for Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) women and girls in the U.S. NAPAWF’s mission is to build collective power so that all AAPI women and girls can have full agency over our lives, our families, and our communities.