Jarod Lew in Conversation with Helen Zia

FREE TO ATTEND, RSVP HERE.

As “Please Take Off Your Shoes” will be on view at SFMOMA as part of photography exhibition, Kinship: Photography and Connection, starting May 20, we can’t help but feel like this is a moment where the universe conspired to make this conversation happen, and not just for CAAMFest but for Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage Month too. Especially because it is Jarod Lew, who photographs the Asian American experience in hopes to visualize communities who would otherwise be overlooked or made invisible, and the one Helen Zia, award-winning author/ journalist, multi hyphenate truth seeker.

Lew was inspired by the revelation that his mother had been the fiancée of Vincent Chin when he was murdered by two white auto workers on the night of his bachelor party in 1982. Chin’s death galvanized Asian American activism around anti-hate crime legislation. Helen Zia has remained a voice to mark the event as a defining moment for collective action against Anti-Asian hate which many of us have seen (and experienced in some form) as something alive and pervasive in America STILL. So, yes, there are definitely things to talk about, and hear, and unpack, and lift up in this exchange.