Rootwork Zine by The W.O.W. Project

The W.O.W. Project is an arts and anti-gentrification organization that centers women, queer, non-binary, and trans Asian youth as leaders working to grow and protect Chinatown’s creative culture. Rootwork is our political education practice. A Letter to the Reader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Planning Rootwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Topic 1: Settler Colonialism & Indigenous Solidarity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Topic 2: Anti-Gentrifcation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Topic 3: Queer Feminisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Topic 4: Conflict Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Our Takeaways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Resource List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

wowprojectnyc.org @wowprojectnyc

A LETTER TO THE READER The idea for Rootwork emerged in 2022 from The W.O.W. Project’s annual planning retreat, which occurred in a moment of transition and contradiction for our organization and our community. Internally, member & staff transitions, our ongoing feelings of isolation and grief (stemming from the pandemic and everything it unearthed), and our organizational shift from a grassroots project towards a formalized nonprofit organization had us thinking critically about our collective identity, values, and purpose. In our attempts to find alignment and clarity, however, we often found ourselves answering questions with more questions. In our “backyard”, Chinatown-based organizations—including ours—were receiving an influx of attention and funding as antiAsian racism gained salience. Long-standing tensions between Asian and other BIPOC communities became more apparent as responses to increased anti-Asian violence revealed deep-seated anti-blackness in our Asian American families, communities, and the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. Simultaneously, the 2020 uprisings reminded us that there’s a history of anti-racist solidarity between Asian and Black communities that started with our parents’ generation, and that building on this solidarity is essential to dismantling the oppression that impacts us all. We created Rootwork as a way to make sense of this context together: to co-develop and sharpen our political analyses, deepen our relationships and trust as a team, and practice implementing our collective goals of shared learning, co-creation, and leadership development in our community. Rootwork became an important part of what we have been calling our "internal year" at W.O.W.— an opportunity to slow down, turn toward each other, and be intentional about how we move forward. 4

This zine is a documentation of our pilot year of engaging in consistent political education, which started with these goals: • • • • • •

We want Rootwork to be a political education *practice*, not a series of workshops or “professional development.” Sessions, and the conversations about the topics they focus on, should be ongoing. We want everyone to want to come—not for this to feel like an obligation. People should feel invested. Combine study + community-building: rigorous conversations + communal dinners. Collaborate with peer organizations. Everything we create or curate should be free information and knowledge. Price should not be a barrier to participation. Share our learning broadly and invite others in.

The following pages are a glimpse into our evolution and learning through Rootwork as our self-created political education and collective study space. We still don’t have answers to all of our questions, but these conversations have helped us identify both a clearer vision for the future we imagine and what we hope to build through our work: a community-owned arts space in Chinatown rooted in lineage that nurtures the self-determination and leadership of (women/queer/trans/non-binary Asian American youth) to design their own futures. We believe that engaging in Rootwork and the radical act of archiving ourselves through this zine move us closer to this vision. In Solidarity, Hana, Denise, Aishvarya, Yuki, and Nomi

Aishvarya Arora Angela Cai Joy Freund Yuki Haraguchi Singha Hon

Cocoro Kitagawa Carolyn Lau Jade Levine Bridget Li Mei Lum Joy Mao

Juliet Phillips Hana Sun Vivian Yi Tiffany Wang Denise Zhou

Our group was predominantly Asian American women, non-binary, and trans people ranging in age from their late teens to their mid-thirties. Each of us have different connections with Manhattan’s Chinatown, where W.O.W. is based: some of us grew up here, others grew up elsewhere in NYC, and others grew up near or in Chinatowns in other cities. We all share the experience of convening in Chinatown and committing to learning about and caring for it. We have all had access to higher education and come from varying class backgrounds: some of us come from working class backgrounds, some benefit from generational wealth, and some have moved through different economic classes throughout our lives so far. We hold or have held many roles in the organization, including staff, leadership, program participant, intern, volunteer, youth member, and teaching artist. 6

Below are a few topics we were interested in early on, which were eventually honed down to the topics included in this zine. We chose topics guided by our individual curiosities, collective brainstorming, and a healthy amount of digression. This process helped us be fluid and responsive, adjusting the “curriculum” and format of Rootwork as we went along. Before sessions, we sent out resources to read/watch to prep for in-person conversations. Every session included a potluck-style meal in the W.O.W. studio!

In anti-gentrification work, there’s a lot of talk about ownership—who a neighborhood “belongs” to, how much history a particular community has with the place they’ve made their home, contending with the idea of land as property or private. We wanted to take a step back from this framework to contextualize our relationship with the actual land that we’re on and consider how the ongoing dispossession of Indigenous land and violence against Indigenous communities might be interconnected with our personal histories and our collective work resisting gentrification in Chinatown. In the summer of 2022, we were connected with the Manna-hatta Fund, an Indigenous solidarity fund that supports the work of American Indian Community House to sustain the largest urban Native population in the US. For our kickoff to Rootwork, two members of the Manna-hatta Fund led a workshop around Indigenous solidarity, where we talked about land acknowledgments, tribal recognition, Lenape relations, Native trauma, lateral violence, and ancestral agreements.

As Asian Americans, we noticed that our politics often hinge on narratives of immigration, class, and assimilation. We wanted to critically (re)examine and (re)narrativize our family stories to start farther back, to (re)consider a starting point that included our participation in settler colonialism. Here are a few reflections from our group:

By Juliet Phillips

W.O.W. Project began as a small community initiative in 2016 focused on community dialogue and resistance to art institutions and galleries moving into Chinatown. As the project continues to grown into a full-fledged organization, we want to remain connected and responsive to the fight against gentrification and displacement of working class communities. We spent this month re-rooting in our history and building shared language and understanding around this topic.

“These two collages were digitally created for my Time class with Simona Prives at Parsons School of Design, and are actually two of a set of six collages. This project encouraged us to explore “visual poetry” through visual elements and arrangement of text. Instantly, I knew I wanted to create a collage collection of Chinatown. I wanted to focus on the culture of my neighborhood, the visceral community of the people, and the troubles we've all faced in this rapid time of change. These collages demonstrate my personal grief with gentrification. As I picked out the images from the New York Public Library’s photo archive, I harbored the entangling discussion from our Gentrification Rootwork session close in thought. Blurred faces and the snipping of the stem demonstrate a sense of disruption and erasure which I thought encapsulated the effects of gentrification.

Growing up in Manhattan’s Chinatown, I’ve witnessed the bitter shifts occur in our community and our neighborhood. For as long as I can remember, I've watched gentrification happen before I even knew the word. It was disheartening to see my favorite litter of stores vanish without a trace and the community dissipating slowly. As I grew older, I realized I wanted to protect Chinatown and the resilient community that deserved their space. It leaves me to the stage I am in my life—consciously engaged with hopes to bring back the Chinatown I remember.” — Tiffany Wang, a youth staff member at W.O.W. Project

W.O.W. is a space that centers women, trans, and non-binary Asian American people. This characteristic of our work is a response to the historically patriarchal aspects of the community in Chinatown. While the space initially centered women and feminism, as the members of the community evolved, queerness and an expansive gender analysis also became important. Studying a queer feminist analysis was an opportunity to reflect on these values and consider how we wanted to carry them into the future. A variety of resources guided us: we read about the Third World Women’s Alliance and histories of queer APA’s in the US and discussed multiple selections from This Bridge Called My Back, including the essential A Black Feminist Statement by Combahee River Collective. Altogether, these materials helped us understand that our queer feminism is not silo’ed and not new—we exist in a radical lineage of queer feminists of color who guide our actions. We closed out this session by asking: what do we want to leave for future generations?

Master no te-tak her annota er Joy with ted book :)

One of our group's big goals was to learn how to navigate conflict and accountability in a way that aligned with our values and didn't perpetuate harmful systems of punishment. Given the weight of this topic, we decided to dedicate the winter/spring season to doing a deep dive together. We started in December with an introductory conversation where we all reflected on our personal relationships with conflict. In February, we split up into four self-study groups: two groups participated in virtual conflict transformation trainings and two groups focused on readings and multimedia resources. Each group spent the next month reviewing their materials and preparing to share with the larger group. In March, we hosted a teach-in where everyone had a chance to step into the facilitator role. Each group came ready to facilitate 45 min-1 hour on their learnings, using a variety of approaches to consider how we can navigate conflict collectively. We hoped this model of co-learning would encourage everyone to see political ed as collaborative and co-created, rather than within the hierarchy of teacher/student. Inviting everyone to have a stake in facilitating political education was critical and affirming of how much each person had to offer to the space. It was also our longest session of Rootwork (6 hours on a Saturday!).

TEACH-IN SCHEDULE & TAKEAWAYS Intro & Shared Agreements from Principled Struggle Our past agreements are more individualized, while these honor individual experience but ultimately benefit the collective. What are we agreeing to collectively struggle for? If people were able to balance being honest + direct + compassionate, it would lead to more connection between people. "Do it scared" - bravery is not the absence of fear but holding it and still moving through it!

Conflict Culture Assessment: How Does W.O.W. Approach Conflict? (Group A)

We have experienced lots of room to slow down, not jumping or rushing through conflict. W.O.W. feels like a safe space to have strong emotions, but it's still hard to do. Conflict conversations usually start in small groups that lead to large group discussions, but not everyone has the same agency to create group discussions. We feel avoidant with other organizations and people outside of our team. Are we afraid it would lead to a divide in solidarity with other organizations? It's also necessary to develop trust with other people and ground in shared values.

Rooting Conflict Transformation in Abolitionist Values (Group B)

Journal: How have you experienced cops, cages, and care? Review terms and definitions from No More Police: abolition, carceral feminism, soft policing, accountability, and punishment. What is transformative justice? It intervenes at the root system of harm. In the long term, it should change the environment and generational cycle. TJ supports survivors by making space for people to answer, "What does justice look like for me?" It's a life practice! Journal: What resources, relationships, skills, and tools do you need to feel safe?

Trying it Out: Scenario Walkthrough Involving Misuse of Power (Group C)

"Call outs" can work for calling out larger institutions but not necessarily for interpersonal relationships. Calling out can be a form of punishment. What would actually reduce harm between multiple people? Structure, hierarchy, and power are often conflated but are not the same thing. They have negative associations and even though they may be used in carceral systems, we can reclaim these words and rethink how we engage with them. Build "power with" rather than "power over!"

In It Together: Conflict is an Opportunity to Grow (Group D)

We don't have to wait for conflict to happen to build tools to respond to it. Activity: Review Common Sources of Conflict (see In It Together for this list). Using emojis, how does this source of conflict make you feel? On a scale from 1-5, how relevant is this source of conflict to our organization? Activity: Create your own safety card. What are signals that you're getting emotionally activated? What are some situations that can trigger those responses for you? What are 3-5 actions you can take to regulate before taking next steps?

Close Out & Gratitude Cards

Activity: For each person, write one compliment/note of gratitude and one question you have for them. Thank you for being invested and present in today's teach-in!

ON LANGUAGE & COMPLEXITY IN MOVEMENT WORK "I describe myself as a complex conversation facilitator because what I’m stewarding is beyond conflict. It’s my role to help bring complexity, to recognize the complexity of a conversation, and steward folks to have the capacity to hold that. For me, that encompasses a lot of our challenges in movement work. We have so much trauma present, that even our capacity to hold complexity can feel really hard. It’s super counterintuitive to the ways that we’re protecting ourselves. Some of us are really skilled at holding complexity in theory, but in reality it’s harder, and we’re just not practiced enough at doing that together. I think that language is a key part of it. We have to first make sure we’re having the same conversation, and we have to break down terms, assumptions, beliefs, to make sure that we’re actually in conversation with each other. What feels really really important to me is that we’re not only talking, but having the experience of language helping us enact what we feel. For me, that is about making sure that feelings are in the room, and that we understand how they are motivating our language and our connection. That there is a sense of embodiment to a degree that feels available to us, so that we are actually entirely here having a conversation, and we’re being honest about what’s here. We need a lot of practice in doing that because it’s counter to a lot of the conditioning that we have—for those of us who live and exist in the United States in particular, in the territory known as Turtle Island. How can we really be here together? It often takes more than an invitation for a brave space, as much as I love that tool. It really takes lots of intention to do that. How can language be a vehicle and an entry point for other ways we want to exist together? How can we just practice and talk more together? I truly believe the paradigm that we’re in is about how we do things collectively to save each other’s lives, to respect the planet, and respect the planet in a way that still allows for us to be here, all of us, beyond human kin, I include mother nature, animals in that." 24

ON PRACTICING DISCERNMENT IN CONFLICT AND REMAINING RESOURCED AS A COLLECTIVE "It really does require slowing down. Slowing down—this is really important to me—slowing down doesn’t have to set extremely firm boundaries around what we can and cannot do. But what it can mean is that we really are in that process of discerning and being able to more sharply prioritize. If our intention is to grow together [through conflict], then we have to have that capacity to do that. We have to make the time. Even for those of us who have a lot of responsibility, it doesn’t mean we have to, somehow, within capitalism find all the time right now, it means we need to do what you all did—it means building out this internal learning agenda for a year, having it take that long while you do other important things too. Part of it is allowing us to slow down so that we can assess, what will this take? And we can prioritize following through on that. Part of it too is like, it’s harder to discern alone. It is helpful to have people who are grappling with similar questions, understanding what they see and observe and perceive, identifying together the many different options that exist when we discern, being able to trust the process of narrowing down, and understanding what we are all tuning into. You can’t do that alone. It’s super helpful to bring out those insights that we can discern together, that we can sharpen with each other. I think in movement spaces, we can be a little more honest about what’s not working just amongst us. Honesty can be about what’s not working, not from a place of critique, but from a generative place, like ok, this is what it is and we can look at it, and understand how that could feel differently. I think that helps with discernment a lot. I think with discernment, often people think it’s this painful stoic process that you just get good at to become an adult or elder, whatever that is, but some of my best discernment has been experimentation, experimentation and discovery, where it feels safe."

NOT CONFLICT AS IN CONFLICT BUT by Aishvarya Arora as in conversation / as in ears perking up / as in tongue tracing tone / as in lips playing pitch / as in this strain of silence / as in detective work / as in disconnected words / as in i don’t understand / you / as in let’s stay in disarray / as in confusions caramel sticks teeth / as in sweetly slow / as in let me come closer to you / as in persistent knocking / as in dormant doorways / open / as in we welcome you in / as in entanglement / as in jewelry / as in adornment that makes our story / as in history decorates / as in i want to understand / us / as in enough to say i don’t right now / as in brave the strange encounter / as in sorry i hurt you / as in sorry i came hurt / as in the song after the music / as in the smell after the candles / as in the dark after celebration / as in beside each other / still / this was written in conversation with the poem “not quiet as in quiet but” by Victoria Adukwei Bulley 26

We learned about safety planning in a conflict transformation training by Interrupting Criminalization and Dragonfly Partners. This practice was also informed by a safety planning video guide by Dr. Sandra Bloom. by Yuki Haraguchi & Carolyn Lau

Q&A WITH THE ROOTWORK TEAM by Yuki Haraguchi on March 13, 2023

This interview has been edited down for clarity. Thank you to Carolyn Lau for coming up with these questions with me! Yuki: What is a challenge you faced in planning these sessions? Hana: Let’s see, aside from some logistical challenges, the usual challenges that were easily overcome, one that I would name is how big some of the topics have been and the challenge of distilling them into a three hour conversation, just curating down and figuring out what questions we’re coming to the session with. Aishvarya: Yeah, I agree that we sort of located each topic, and how it applied to us at W.O.W. as a community. But I think it was also challenging to balance being directive with the goal of the workshop and wanting the group to shape how we were engaging with the material, because some of the topics emerged from questions that came up at past retreats or as we planned programs, you know, or just language that we often use in the space. Y: What workshop(s) most resonated with you? And if they all really resonate for different reasons, another question I have is, can you pick one or two learnings you took away from the sessions? Denise: I feel like…I really enjoyed the queer feminisms session, and the gentrification one…and the conflict one… [laughs] Y: I know…ok, maybe this wasn’t the best question to ask because I know they were all resonant. D: I’ll say the queer feminism one, because one of the conversations that came up during that session was about what queerness even means, and a kind of definition that was formulated was queerness as something that exists outside of the mainstream and outside of the dominant culture. So I think of being on the margins, and like, what does it mean for us as an organization to have our roots in being on the margins of Chinatown and of gentrification organizing. It was interesting because I’m not sure that everyone at W.O.W. identifies as queer and and one of the concerns that we had planning the workshop was like, this feels kind of personal because it is…so how do we talk about it in a way that is more about the history of queer feminisms and the legacy that we’re coming from. To be able to use resources that identified other movements that had operated in similar fashion was really inspiring and hopeful. 28

A: Another sort of takeaway of the queer feminisms workshop was for us as a group to articulate that we wanna think almost more materially in the choices we make, rather than just the representation of folks in the room. And kind of sit with the fact that someone could be queer and in a position of power to make decisions and choose things that are not in the interest of queer people. And that felt like that opened something up in the space and kind of framed our thinking in this way that wasn’t about individual identity. It felt really grounding. H: I was gonna name that session as well, for all the reasons that Denise and Aishvarya already mentioned. I think in the flow of our series, that was the first workshop where we were both thinking more introspectively, but also encouraging ourselves to imagine a future that may not exist, like a future ideal. I’m really drawn to sci-fi, or afrofuturist literature in general, where we think about what would it mean if we are all liberated? Whereas the previous two workshops had been more grounded in history. So this challenged us, I think. Y: I feel like you’ve already touched on this a little bit, but what did you learn about The W.O.W. Project from planning and facilitating Rootwork? A: Every workshop had different needs and different challenges we were anticipating...but then we would come together and everyone would just really show up. We’d just be around the table eating, and I don’t know—everyone, every individual person felt like a very important presence in our conversations. And that happened every time, but every time I would go in…and not necessarily be surprised by it, but have so much appreciation for how that shaped our learning. We always wanted Rootwork to be a co-created and co-learning space, even if the three of us were facilitating and planning. We always wanted it to become a more collective process. And I think I really learned that our space and our group is very capable of showing up for that. And I really enjoyed that a lot. H: That’s so nice, Aishvarya. For me, just in the roles that I’ve been in at W.O.W., I’ve often felt like I’m not part of the core staff team, so I don’t always know what’s happening. But I learned that most people at W.O.W. feel that way, and part of it is because we’ve been like part of one program, or just like, you know, segmented in a way. So I think, even just having and learning that there is this want and desire to connect with each other and get to know each other was a nice reminder. D: I learned a lot about how much everyone’s personal experiences color what we do at W.O.W. and how important it is that we return to that. As the organization grows, there is kind of this…deferring and thinking that somebody else in the room has a better idea of what to do, how to do it, and I think that’s actually not true. Our community is also the people that are in the room. So it’s important that we reinforce that over and over again, and stay connected to the fact that we’re all impacted by the these topics that we’re talking about, whether or not we think so consciously about them all the time.

Y: What did you learn about yourself from planning Rootwork? H: Something that I’m always thinking about, which also came up during Rootwork, is how to be someone in a group conversation that pushes a conversation forward in a sometimes controversial way without just like lighting a fire for the sake of lighting a fire. Especially for some of the maybe harder topics like conflict transformation, that was a role that I was trying to play, and I guess we ask other people whether or not that was successful. But I’ve thought a lot more about like archetypes or different types of participants and which one I wanna be in a certain group, or at a certain moment…Yeah, I was thinking about that. D: I was learning so much from Hana and Aishvarya every week that we would meet…just the kinds of questions that they would pose, I felt like a student all the time. I think something just kind of clicked doing Rootwork for me that I was like, okay, this is the kind of the space that I really enjoy living in, especially it intersecting with youth in the room, or people who maybe hadn’t thought that much about their political analysis, to meet people where they’re at. And how exciting it is to watch the group come to different learnings and have reflections that were encouraged by whatever things that we had posed as facilitators. It’s so cool to know that there’s so much to gain from just talking to people and offering resources. And when people show up, when I show up with an earnest desire to learn from everybody, how much better it is than just learning by yourself and reading, you know, some really hefty academic text on the train. It’s actually so much more cool and fun to do it with other people. So I learned that this was really fulfilling work, and something that I want to continue to tap into. A: I learned that I love hanging out with Hana and Denise [everyone laughs] but actually, though I do feel like…yeah for me the learnings were really about working as a group. I think the first group that I consider in that is the three of us. Having a weekly sort of planning process, I learned to let ideas develop on the fly. This was also, I would say, my first significant and consistent experience as a facilitator. I like to prepare but I realized that there’s just gonna be stuff that happens in the meeting or in the room that you can’t prepare for, and that’s more what I wanna show up for. So I guess what I learned about myself is that not preparing makes me feel very vulnerable, but that I tend to do better work and be more present with people when I sort of prepare differently, which I think is really about challenging myself to be in the moment. I think that’s definitely something I learned from Hana and Denise, as well. I think it was fun to facilitate together and slowly start to read each other’s minds over sessions and sometimes be like, we can’t read each other’s minds and we’re still gonna do this together. H: And also just that feeling when all the eyeballs are just looking at you silently, that’s like the first facilitator moment where you’re like…‘Oh, I gotta hold this space like, hold this group towards doing something.’ 30

D: Rude awakening [everyone laughs] Y: Okay, my last question is, we know W.O.W. is gonna continue doing Rootwork in some form or another, but what is your hope for Rootwork moving forward? H: I guess, I mean I know you’re saying that it will be moved forward, but I hope that it becomes more collaboratively led or maybe that people feel a sense of ownership or leadership…That it’s more of an initiative within the organization and that people feel comfortable either proposing ways of learning or conversations that they wanna have, or, you know, material that they want the group to collectively think about. Practically and logistically, it is easier for a small group of people to coordinate the series, but I think our original goal is that political education becomes a practice that the organization just has as part of its work. I do think in social change spaces, there does need to be some kind of opportunity or intentional thinking about the political aspects of the work that we’re doing, and maybe that’s something that’s starting or that’s what we’re missing in movement spaces in general. Not having a shared analysis and not having a shared strategy or clear sense of our direction as a group of people working together, at W.O.W. but also in many movement spaces, is really hurting us. And I would love for even just all the groups in Chinatown, or all the anti-gentrification organizations in New York to be able to have conversations that move us forward, and don’t just repeat themselves because we haven’t all done the work of getting all on the same page. You know, it feels like we’re a little bit lost as a movement in general lately. So that would be my hope. D: I think my hope is that people get radicalized through these conversations, that this idea of building a practice of political education at W.O.W. also applies to our individual work: what do people as individuals feel called to do in terms of continuing to develop their own political analysis, and how do they continue to think about their place in society and social change? I also hope that youth especially—and I’m thinking, more like high school/college age people that we work with—feel more empowered to continue this kind of work and that they gain hope from political education. It’s important to me that maybe there is a version of Rootwork that is youth-led and youth-run and youth-formulated, based on the things that they are curious about. A: I don’t have anything to add. I really like both of your answers for the future. Y: My heart’s all warm now. That was awesome, thank you guys, that’s the end of the interview. Lemme hit stop recording.

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Questions about “Home” Worksheet from The Catalyst Project “Acknowledging the Doctrine of Christian Domination” by Steven T. Newcomb “My six nation Haudenosaunee passport is not a ‘fantasy document’” by Tadodaho Sid Hill “Towards Decolonization and Settler Responsibility: Reflections on a Decade of Indigenous Solidarity Organizing” by Liza Minno Bloom and Berkley Carnine Treaties Explorer via Indigenous Digital Archive Native-Land.ca

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Gentrification is Inevitable and Other Lies by Leslie Kern “Gentrification in Chinatown is the Focus of These Young Activists” by Eda Yu “Gentrification and the Criminalization of Neighborhoods” by Abdallah Fayyad Our Homes, Our Rights video by youth from Global Action Project & CAAAV Gentrification Express: Breaking Down the BQX by Samantha Farinella and Amanda Katz

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“What do queer feminist perspectives have to tell us about our current political moment?” by Tunay Altay, Nadje Al-Ali, Katharina Galor, and Gökçe Yurdakul “At the Intersection of Race, Gender, and Class: Honoring the Revolutionary Feminist Legacy of the Third World Women’s Alliance” by Karla Mendez “Breathing Fire: Remembering Asian Pacific American Activism in Queer History” by Amy Sueyoshi Selections from This Bridge Called My Back: • “A Black Feminist Statement” by Combahee River Collective (p. 303-313) • “In Search of the Self As Hero by Nellie Wong” (p. 255-260) • “The Welder by Cherríe Moraga” (p. 314-315) Queer Check-Ins by Franny Choi & Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center Queer Elders Video by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center

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“Moving Toward Conflict for the Sake of Good Strategy” by Yotam Marom Turning Towards Each Other Workbook by Jovida Ross & Weyam Ghadbian Philly Stands Up Accountability Road Map No More Police: A Case for Abolition by Mariame Kaba and Andrea Ritchie Finding Our Way Podcast: Harm, Punishment, and Abolition with Mariame Kaba In It Together Training by Interrupting Criminalization & Dragonfly Partners Ms Foundation Conflict Navigation Training “Principled Struggle” by N’Tanya Lee

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The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence

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Thanks so much for reading and being part of our political ed journey! We’re looking forward to continuing to share our work. If you have thoughts, feedback, or if this inspires any projects for you, we’d love to hear. Drop us a message at info@wowprojectnyc.org. Following the publication of this zine, we hosted a Rootwork session on the Non-Profit Industrial Complex with guest facilitator Ryan Lee Wong, as well as a public panel at Bluestockings Cooperative Bookstore about political education in anti-gentrification movement-building with organizers from CAAAV/Chinatown Tenants Union and Mexicanos Unidos.

SPECIAL THANKS

Cheyanna Weber, Ragini Kathail, and lily bo shapiro from Manna-hatta Fund Jade Levine & Em He from the W.O.W. Board Interrupting Criminalization Dragonfly Partners Richael Faithful Marian Chudnovsky and Sunny Iyer from Wendy’s Subway Monica Johnson from Booklyn Bluestockings Cooperative Bookstore

FUNDERS

Activist Collaboration & Care Fund Grant from the Ms. Foundation Capacity Building Grant from the New York Women’s Foundation Inside of front cover photo by Marion Aguas Back cover illustration by Singha Hon, inspired by her experience of Rootwork and navigating big political ed topics in community