#WeAreAPA
#Ad We at Dear Asian Americans partnered with @McDonalds to present the #WeAreAPA series to support and uplift diverse stories in the Asian Pacific American community. Meet Steve, the second of seven stories celebrating the breadth and depth of the APA experience. Steve found healing by cherishing memories with his loved ones, including those he’s made at @McDonalds with family.
Steve Kim | Founder of Project Kinship & University of Southern California Professor
I experienced a lot of trauma as a kid, which I didn't realize was trauma at that time. And it created a lot of challenges for me later on in life. I ended up getting incarcerated. I ended up getting addicted to drugs. I ended up homeless. But throughout all those experiences, it's taught me about the compassion of people, about community, family, and healing. And what I've learned is that trauma heals through people. And throughout my life, I've experienced that with many people, one of those moments was with my grandfather.
When I was a kid, I remember my grandfather walking me into McDonald's and the two of us just sitting there eating Happy Meals together. Even to this day, when I think about McDonald's, these moments were some of my fondest memories as a kid during some of our most difficult times.
I wish people knew more about the APA community who do not fall into the model minority category. Those who are struggling, who get incarcerated, who are homeless. It would be great for us to focus more attention in that area so that there are no folks who are standing outside the margins so they can also be seen in the same way our entire community longs to be seen in this nation.
That's why I do what I do at Project Kinship. We have this saying called, "Serving versus saving," that we don't go into this work or into this world trying to save people. It's better to serve people. As you serve people, somehow in some way, we find ourselves finding moments of being saved. So that's really my story. Being very fortunate to be able to have found healing through communities.