Facing Race: A National Conference in St. Louis, MO — November 20-22, 2024

Kana Hammon

Narrative Strategist | Asian American Futures
Pronouns: she/her
Kana Hammon is a narrative strategist and award-winning researcher with 10 years of experience launching programs, organizations, mobile apps and digital campaigns that have reached millions of people. In addition to Asian American Futures, Kana has worked on the May 19th Project, the Butterfly Lab for Immigrant Narrative Strategy at Race Forward and Emerging Radiance. Kana holds a BA in ethnic studies and an MBA, both from Stanford University. Outside of work, Kana enjoys cooking, surfing and hiking near her home in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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Presentations from Facing Race 2024

{R}evolution in Action: Building Narrative Power through Community

In 2022, Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality (AACRE) launched a major strategic effort to build narrative power that reinforces shared progressive values across Asian American communities and empowers action toward an inclusive vision of healing and justice.

AACRE launched a narrative strategy lab in partnership with the Butterfly Lab for Immigrant Narrative Strategy and Asian American Futures to define a set of guiding aspirational narratives for AACRE’s work. Then, they engaged over 40 artist-activists (“artivists”) to launch a multi-sensory, immersive installation in San Francisco Chinatown in partnership with Edge on the Square. They hope to engage older teens and young adults across the AA diaspora to embrace values of activism, justice, and racial solidarity as they come to understand how these values are embedded in AA cultures and have informed AA history.

This understanding can counter negative stereotypes (i.e., that AA people are passive in the face of injustice, that AA communities are isolated and insular) and prompt young people toward new depths of reflection, collaboration, and civic action. This session will offer an introduction to arts-based narrative strategy. Then, we will share how others can advance a culture-based narrative strategy across a broad network, with interactive arts activities exploring the strategies AACRE has developed.

Speakers: Miko Lee, Kana Hammon