FEATURE: PiA ALUMNI MAKING A DIFFERENCE

national policy for four years. These basic healthcare providers attended to the poor in rural communities and proved to be a highly effective, low-cost solution to reducing disease.

The idea of creating systemic change to serve the people stuck with Zia when she returned to the U.S. After attending medical school for two years, Zia decided to dedicate the rest of her life to social advocacy and journalism.

In the early 1980s, Japanese car companies were booming, and the American auto industry was in decline. Anti-Asian sentiment was rampant, culminating in the racially motivated murder of an innocent Chinese American, Vincent Chin, who was celebrating his bachelor party at a club in Detroit. The two white men who murdered Chin, an employee of Chrysler and his stepson who had recently been laid off from an auto factory, were sentenced to only three years’ probation and a $3,000 fine.

“There was no justice for Vincent Chin,” remarks Chen. “The legal system somehow let the AAPI community down.” centered around a leprosy hospital. Even when medication was available, many remained undiagnosed and untreated because the stigma would lead to ostracization, not only for them, but also for their entire families.

At the time, Zia was working in Detroit as a community activist and journalist, which put her in a position to rise as a leader in the movement to bring justice to Chin. Through her writing, Zia rallied Asian American activists and launched the modern fight for AAPI empowerment.

“After my time in Vietnam I couldn’t really see problems of the world as neatly fitting into distinctive categories such as public health, inequality, or culture,” says Venkataraman. “The problems we face are interrelated.”

Though Venkataraman identifies more as a journalist than an advocate, she is a staunch supporter of human rights. To create a more equitable society, Venkataraman emphasizes the imagination as a key tool.

“When it comes to social movements and advocacy, including AAPI advocacy, imagination of a different reality than the one many people are experiencing today can be powerful,” says Venkataraman. Making choices today to contribute to that desired future gives people a sense of agency and is a form of what Venkataraman has coined “pragmatic optimism.”

Step by step, new and better policies have the power to improve the lives of thousands, as Zia witnessed with China’s healthcare system.

Back in early 20th century China, infants were dying from diphtheria and dead bodies lined the streets, waiting to be carried away by trucks. By the time Zia reached the mainland in 1972, the barefoot doctors program had been integrated into Mao Zedong’s

“Back then it was not so common for different Asian ethnicities to join together,” says Zia. “There had never been a national Asian American voice to talk about racism.”

Though the perpetrators never saw a day in prison, the movement led to significant advances in social advocacy. Zia co-founded the American Citizens for Justice (ACJ), an organization dedicated to Chin’s legacy and intersectional AAPI activism, and Michigan enacted the “Vincent Chin Rule,” which allowed victims to make impact statements during sentencing. National attention was focused on anti-Asian discrimination as protests erupted throughout the country, and ACJ was joined in solidarity by activists in Jewish, Black, and other communities.