InterAction Initiative Inc.

In celebration of our Storytelling for Racial Justice Fellowship, InterAction hosted an open mic for our fellows and community 💖 We spent a wonderful night eating empanadas from , sharing our counter-narratives (stories from the margins), and reading our fellows' newly published zine - Finding Comfort...in THIS Economy??

Thank you to for your vibrant energy and for taking pictures of the night. Thank you to for letting us use your GORGEOUS venue. We couldn't have done this without you!

It was really a wonderful night 🥰 What a great way to cap off the summer!!

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If folks want a copy of our newly published zine (graciously printed by ), please go to bit.ly/findingcomfortorderform

CONGRATULATIONS PRECIOUS!! 🎉

Precious is a previous fellow/alumni of our Storytelling for Racial Justice Fellowship. She got into the University of Houston and plans to major in Business Management. We could not be more proud of her 🥰

Please support Precious's journey to college. She's started a gofundme to raise funds for room, board, and school supplies!! Link is in bio~

WELCOME OFELIA, OUR STORYTELLING FELLOW 🤗

“My name is Ofelia Reyes. I live in Hermosa and am currently a sophomore in high school! I’m really interested in racial justice because racism is something I’ve always been surrounded by. The older I got, the more I started to inform myself and the more interested I got in racial justice. I hope to further explore these topics this summer! As a previous Fellow, I’m excited to be on the other side of this fellowship and to help lead and organize”

We’re so excited to have you Ofelia and to co-develop and co-facilitate our Storytelling for Racial Justice Fellowship with you. Welcome to InterAction 💜✨

It's that time of year again! 🤩InterAction is hosting another Storytelling for Racial Justice Fellowship. We're seeking 12 BIPOC students from CPS (ages 14-19) who want to learn about racial justice history and write personal narratives around race📝. These stories will be published by 826CHI and we'll have an open mic event to celebrate!!

Application is linked in our bio and deadline is June 5th @11:59pm CST (When applying, please use a NON-CPS EMAIL!! Google Forms doesn't accept apps coming from those emails for some reason😠 ). If you have any questions, please email our Program Manager, Kelly Yu at [email protected]

PAID STUDY FOR ASIAN AMERICANS (ages 18-21) 🤑 Our wonderful Program Manager, Kelly Yu, has teamed up with Soo Young Lee, a UChicago researcher, to host a virtual workshop on storytelling and AsAm identity 🌸 We’re interested in discovering, through stories, how Asian Americans create meaning out of their identities!! For more info, go to bit.ly/AsAmStorytelling or our bio for the screening survey ✨

Today (3.16.22) marks the one year anniversary of the Atlanta spa shooting, which took the lives of 8 people – 6 of whom were Asian women. We remember this tragedy in its wholeness, and in relation to George Floyd’s murder and the abolitionist uprisings 🤍

With this in mind, InterAction worked with .creating.equity and to make a Black-Asian History pamphlet, Liberation Is With Each Other. We recognize our Black and Asian communities, not from the narrative of whiteness, but from our lived experiences and shared history as radical changemakers.

With this timeline, we uplift a counter-narrative that is not just marked by tragedy and violence, but also community, energy, and solidarity.

Huge shout out to the Chicago youth who compiled this pamphlet, the artists who designed the cover , and for the Black and Asian folks who created the timeline which inspired it!!!

An online version and order form is available in our LinkTree. Black, Asian, and young folks (18 and under) can order free physical copies and white adult allies are encouraged to donate a solidarity fee 🌻

FREE Online Read:
https://online.fliphtml5.com/fbsaz/qgsa/ =1
Order Form:
https://secure.lglforms.com/form_engine/s/_Le_ZOpldJV4O3OcNzyv9A

WE'RE BACK!!! After some intentional rest, we're ready to return to the work with fresh eyes 🤩 and newfound energy.

InterAction is looking for like-minded folks who want to work through and build towards Black-Asian solidarity. We'll be creating a collective project aimed at shifting the narrative around Black-Asian solidarity, which addresses these questions: After everything that's happened, what does Black-Asian solidarity look like now? How can we continue to support each other in the fight for collective liberation?

Exciting stuff, we know ⚡️ Please join us in this endeavor! Applications are open until Jan 23rd at 11:59pm CST. Feel free to share with folks in your community! You can access the form (with more specific details about the program) through bit.ly/YBAform

Huge shoutout and thank you to Table XI for having us facilitate Racial Justice 101 and Counter-Narrative workshops for your BIPOC employees 🥳. We cultivated an affirming learning space by sharing personal stories and reclaiming our narratives beyond white supremacy.

Want to know how counter-narratives uplift the workplace? Table XI created this wonderful article explaining how they've done it. Check it out! 🌟

Why We’re Engaging with Counter-Narratives | Table XI Learn why TXI is equipping our team with the tools to resist oppressive narratives through amplifying our own marginalized stories.

🌼ANOTHER APPRECIATION POST 🌼 Sending love once more to .vsqzz for pouring their creative talents and time to this zine collab 💗 Our last post couldn’t encompass how thankful we are of you. SO PLEASE FOLLOW ASH ON INSTA, THEY’RE GREAT 🤩✨

💎💎💎RADICAL GEMS DROPPING 💎💎💎 “Our Stories Matter, So Listen Up!” is finally out!!! Read stories by Young BIPOC from Chicago and Northwest Indiana as they navigate, resist, and thrive. We’re immensely happy to say it’s available now to read online for FREE and to order 😱🤩. Click on our bio to uplift these radically awesome and profound stories. Sale ends on September 10th at 11:59pm CST and you can get a physical copy . Lastly, thank you to for funding this whole dang operation (!!!), for generously publishing, and .vsqzz for this zine design💜

Our youth program recently ended and we’re still in our feelings about it 🤧 What an amazing experience to share space with young BIPOC and hear their stories around race—the future is truly in good hands 👏. Thank you for program consulting, for hosting our in-person meetings, for providing 🔥 ice cream at our closing event, and—of course—all the facilitators who came to share their badass wisdom, especially for helping our Fellows write their counternarrative stories. It took a village and we wouldn’t have wanted it any other way💕

PART 3 of 3: Not all stories written by BIPOC are counter narratives 🤭 Some actually perpetuate the very dominant narratives we’re fighting against! It’s important to be intentional with how we speak our stories and what message it conveys