Starbucks partners are coming together during Asian, Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month to champion and learn about the diversity of the communities.

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In honor of AANHPI Heritage Month, the members and allies of the Pan-Asian and India Partner Networks at Starbucks are joining forces to support one another and build community across many cultures.

The two partner networks have scheduled numerous moments to celebrate diversity within Starbucks and are sharing special opportunities for anyone to learn about the cultural intricacies and diversity of the AANHPI communities, as well as engage in acts of service.

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In this short video, Starbucks partner Florence shares how her family’s history as Vietnamese refugees has given her the strength and resilience to balance a career, parenthood and serving as a community champion for numerous causes. Her story epitomizes this year’s AANHPI Heritage Month theme: “Our Stories. Our Heritage. Our Future.” 

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Join partners nationally in supporting The Asian American Foundation, an organization Starbucks is teaming up with for their commitment to combating anti-Asian hate and creating belonging.

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You can join in supporting TAAF two ways:

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The Pan-Asian Partner Network and India Partner Network also support local organizations across the U.S. through service and by nominating these organizations for grants from The Starbucks Foundation's <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/press/2021/strengthening-communities-through-neighborhood-grants/">Neighborhood Grants Program</a>. Here are just a few of the local non-profits that our partners work with to strengthen their communities:

Starbucks partners embrace opportunities to be as inclusive as possible. This means recognizing the many identities within the AANHPI communities – and continually educating ourselves. Positive change starts with learning the basics of allyship and advocacy.

The interactive videos below are from the To Be Welcoming course, “Welcoming Dialogue on Asian American/Pacific Islander Bias,” and present ASU faculty and subject matter experts answering commonly asked questions about Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders.

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Continue your education by participating in the full “Welcoming Dialogue on Asian American/Pacific Islander Bias” course.

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Recommended listening throughout AANHPI Heritage Month from our partners:

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Formerly known as Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, AANHPI Month also recognizes the history and achievements of Native Hawaiians and advancing equity.

Honoring connection among the Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities

Stories to inspire and nurture the human spirit

Starbucks Stories

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One day, when Rajiv was in kindergarten, he came home crying. He was the only student of Indian descent at his elementary school, and his classmates had been teasing him mercilessly about his name, mispronouncing it on purpose.

“I came home in tears and I asked my parents, ‘Can you just change my name, so I can have a normal name, so I can fit in?” he remembers. “That’s when my parents sat me down and explained that my name meant, in ancient Sanskrit, Blue Lotus.”

They told him how the lotus – India’s national flower – is rooted in the mud, but rises through it to blossom. They taught him about the flower’s deep religious connotations around purity, resurrection and enlightenment.

“It was a beautiful moment for me retrospectively,” says Rajiv, 37, a Starbucks store manager in Atlanta. “It was really fundamental to me understanding and embracing my identity.”

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For Rajiv, who was born in Delaware to parents who’d immigrated to the U.S. from India, that moment sparked a lifelong journey to try and fully connect with his heritage, to try and discover who he really is.

The journey took him back to India during his college summers. He worked in a hospital in Lucknow doing research alongside his aunt, a psychologist. He walked in the footsteps of the pre-colonial maharajas who had once ruled the desert states near the Indo-Pakistani border. And he visited the same bustling neighborhoods and stores in Delhi where his parents lived and shopped.

“Those college experiences were fundamental in grounding me,” Rajiv says. “Traveling alone in India forced me to relearn the language, gain confidence in a drastically different culture and appreciate the shift that my parents underwent when they came to the U.S., knowing no one, and without any support.”

The journey continued after he got married, when he traveled to “the four different corners of India” with his wife – who is half-Japanese and half-white – so he could celebrate his heritage alongside her. And the journey lives on today, as he tries to capture and preserve the stories of his grandparents on video, so he can pass down a first-hand account to future generations.

“My Asian heritage is something that I have become closer to and embraced more and more as I’ve aged,” Rajiv says. “My own acceptance, my own understanding of my heritage has deepened.”

He still has family in India, including his elderly grandmother and an uncle who has cancer. He worries about them, along with all those in India who are currently <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/press/2020/navigating-through-covid-19/">facing a heartbreaking situation</a> with overwhelming numbers of people with COVID-19 and dangerous variants. “To feel so powerless as the crisis magnifies in my homeland has been so distressing,” he says.

When Rajiv reflects on what he’s learned&nbsp;during his travels to India and the lessons from his life, he remembers how his mother nurtured her own community and, with dignity, “persevered in winning over the hearts of everyone she came in contact with.” She patiently explained Indian culture over a cup of chai to co-workers who were unfamiliar with it, and prepared family favorites like chickpea curry, lentil stew and spicy spaghetti whenever Rajiv’s friends came over for a study session.

Maybe her example of hospitality and respect for guests, he says, is one possible way to help confront the problems around race in America. It’s something he’s increasingly mindful of as he thinks both about how to interact with his customers (he’s been a Starbucks store manager since 2014), and how to take action amidst the recent uptick in reported attacks against Asians and Asian Americans, including the mass shootings of Asian women that happened in his city in March.

“We ourselves have to be comfortable enough to say, this is who we are. It’s so easy for people to shy away from who they are, to diminish their heritage in an effort to fit in, because it’s the path of least resistance,” Rajiv says. “You have to fundamentally understand yourself and your heritage and culture first, and then bring people along for the ride, who don’t have the exposure. That, coupled with seeing the pride that we have in our culture, will lead to greater acceptance.”

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During Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Rajiv, a Starbucks store manager in Atlanta, talks about connecting more deeply with his own Indian identity.

Honoring AAPI Heritage Month: A store manager’s journey to discover his Indian identity

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During Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Rajiv, a Starbucks store manager in Atlanta, talks about connecting more deeply with his own Indian identity and how his mother’s approach to hospitality might be one way to stop the hate.

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Whenever an elderly Asian customer comes into the New York City Starbucks where Sienna works as a barista, she makes extra sure that they feel seen and taken care of. She has three reasons, she says.

First, she wants them to feel safe in light of the increase in reported attacks against Asians and Asian Americans nationwide. Second, they remind her of her own beloved Filipino grandparents, who she grew up with in Hawaii. And third, she’s motivated by the invisibility she’s felt and experienced professionally as an early-career Filipino actor.

Born and raised in Honolulu, Sienna moved to New York City to attend college, study acting and try to break into Broadway and the film industry. But it hasn’t been easy, and not just because the pandemic has shut down many creative outlets.

“In terms of what actually gets produced in the mainstream, in your TV shows or films or Broadway shows, there aren’t a lot of Filipino stories out there,” says Sienna, 26. “A lot of Filipino actors I grew up watching portrayed characters not of Filipino background, but east Asian or even Latinx roles.

“I just feel like in that sense, Filipinos are not seen. What I would like to promote with my work is to push for actual Filipino representation and Filipino stories.”

Those stories are stories of home. Her parents are artists – her mother, a pianist, and her father, a painter who works as an architect – who encouraged her to act, play music and dance hula. They also told her vivid tales of their old neighborhood in Ilocos Norte, on the northwest tip of Luzon, the largest island in the Philippines – about the neighbor with the distinct cough or the Catholic church bell tower across the street that would toll so loudly.

Her two older sisters, who were born in the Philippines, told her different kinds of stories, scary ones from Filipino folklore, about giants who lived in the trees and shape-shifting women who chased little children.

Her grandparents made such a big impact on her, that in college, Sienna wrote a story of her own, trying to both honor her grandfather’s experience back in the Philippines and make sense of her own heritage that stems from it. She describes him biking miles and miles to work, fishing in a local river with his brothers and pursuing a master’s degree in education in Manila. It’s interspersed with a burst of scenes from her life in Hawaii – eating slow-cooked pork laulau with a scoop of rice, and sucking the cartilage off an oxtail soup bone – and her first encounter with New York – where the “air is crisp like an apple, and the wind sharp like the knife that slices it” and she has an awkward encounter with a bagel-shop employee who attempts to speak to her in Tagalog, which she doesn’t know.

She has adapted the story into a solo piece that she hopes to perform.

“I have so much respect for my family and their life histories. That is so rich and valuable,” Sienna says. “Why wouldn’t we have these stories represented in Hollywood or Broadway?”

Those stories also remind her to move through this world with care and intentionality, whether it’s being patient and kind to the many older Asian immigrants who live in her neighborhood and come into her store – for whom language, even when ordering coffee, can be a barrier – or processing the racial reckoning happening throughout the country.

“For the most part, it’s about moving through the world with huge compassion,” Sienna says. “Whenever anyone or any community comes forward sharing their experience, or asking for support in help in combatting racism, it’s important to listen with compassion and try to help each other move forward in whatever way we can, and to tap into our skills and our strengths and not be afraid to use that.”

Sienna, a Starbucks barista in New York, shares how she’s sometimes felt invisible – and how it’s motivated her to help others in the Asian community.

Honoring AAPI Heritage Month: A Filipino actor’s quest to truly be seen and see others

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What does it mean to be “Asian enough?”

That was a question Gina often asked herself while growing up. Half-Korean and half-white, she spent most of her first 18 years in Korea, on a U.S. Army base and then in Seoul. She was immersed in the country’s culture and traditions, fluent in the language and surrounded by Korean friends and family.

But when she moved to the U.S. to attend college in a predominantly white, rural community, she found that some of her mannerisms stuck out. In Korea, for example, holding hands and linking arms with her female classmates was a way to signify friendship. But in the context of her new roommates, some of whom had never had an Asian friend before, that felt suddenly and completely foreign.

“I checked myself because I wanted to fit in,” remembers Gina, now a Starbucks district manager in Virginia. Meanwhile, “my Korean friends thought I was trying to become more American. It was a constant struggle where you can’t be both to their fullest extent.”

Gina, 33, began to find acceptance of her identity after meeting her husband, who was born in Korea, but had a completely different lived experience after being adopted by a Danish American family in the Midwest. He didn’t speak the language and wasn’t familiar at all with the customs.

“It was important for me to help him find his identity and be proud of being Korean,” she says. “Through that mutual discovery process, I was able to feel more comfortable in my own skin, that I can fully feel comfortable being an Asian as I would like to be, without having to make excuses or having validation.”

Now that they have children, “it’s very important and a part of my responsibility to help them be able to understand what part of their identity makes them unique, that makes them be able to have additional value out in society,” Gina says. “I want my kids to feel empowered. I want them to know that they can be fully and culturally how they choose” – whether it’s wearing a traditional hanbok to school or learning how to honor their halmoni, or grandmother.

About five years ago, Gina joined the Starbucks Women’s Impact Network (WIN), a partner (employee) resource group, where she found a community of strong women leaders. They helped her gain confidence and “be comfortable around uncomfortable topics.” She thought specifically about the many times she felt “invisible” during discussions about race, when some people assumed she was only championing Asian causes because of her husband and their children, or when others invalidated her views because they assumed she was white or not Asian enough to fully understand the struggles.

By then, she’d met many other Asian American peers, who like her, were working through identity issues too. So last October, she helped launch the Mid-Atlantic regional chapter of the Pan-Asian Partner Network (PPN), another partner resource group. They are now more than 100 members strong.

“My entire life, I’ve dealt with this idea of wanting to fit in, without having to check one box or the other,” Gina says. “I saw there was a part of my own personal community that wasn’t being represented and supported. It was just a moment for me to take every experience that I’d had, and do what I’d always wanted someone to do for me.”

The timing was especially meaningful. Amidst the recent rise in anti-Asian violence, PPN regional chapters have been holding listening sessions across the country this spring, so partners can find community and resources, and process and reflect on their experiences. More than 1,600 Starbucks partners have participated so far.

“For a long time, I felt like I shouldn’t be the one to launch the PPN chapter, because I’m not fully Asian, or I don’t represent the true Asian experience,” she says. “But I’m so glad for my experiences. At the end of the day, I push all that aside. I hope that people, in hearing my story, maybe feel inspired and speak up themselves, unapologetically be themselves, and not feel like they have to be an imposter in one aspect or another. I love that I can fully be me.”

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During Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Gina, a Starbucks district manager who is half-Korean and half-white, shares her story of learning to embrace her unique experiences.

Honoring AAPI Heritage Month: Embracing diversity within diversity

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During Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Gina, a Starbucks district manager who is half-Korean and half-white, shares her story of learning to embrace her unique experiences and her desire to help others “unapologetically be themselves.”

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A number of organizations are doing important work to educate, advocate and provide support in the fight against anti-Asian racism and xenophobia. Below, please find links to resources about the Asian, Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) experience.

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Resources for fighting anti-Asian racism and xenophobia.

Standing against Asian hate

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This May, during Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month, Starbucks is proud to stand together with our AAPI partners and communities. We honor their stories, their identities and their experiences – whether they’re immigrants or newly arrived, or their families and lives have been deeply rooted for generations. 

With this year’s heritage month coming during especially difficult times, we believe even more in celebrating families, neighborhoods and traditions. Even apart, we’re better together.

Starbucks celebrates Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month - Starbucks Stories

Starbucks celebrates Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

Dive deeper into the unique stories and experiences of three individuals.

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When Chanel DeCorte was in elementary school, she joined a hālau – a hula dancing school – in Oahu, where she grew up. The school became like a second family to DeCorte, giving her emotional support during difficult times while teaching her to express her Pacific Islander heritage in ways that went beyond words.

For more than 20 years, DeCorte has learned and danced the stories taught by WandaMae Pa’akea Akiu, her kumu – her teacher – stories about lovers and wars, stories about honey-eating birds and never-fading flowers, stories about the ancient places and ancient chiefs.

“When I’m dancing hula, I feel proud,” says DeCorte, 28, a Starbucks store manager in Kapolei, Hawaii. “Not only are you sharing a story about your culture and where you came from and your heritage, but you’re also sharing the knowledge and values that your own kumu has taught and instilled in you.

“I’m lucky enough to hear the stories firsthand from my kumu, and her kumu before her, and everyone else who came before them.”

This May, during Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month, Starbucks is proud to stand together with our AAPI partners and communities. Starbucks honors their stories, their identities and their experiences – whether they’re immigrants or newly arrived, or their families and lives have been deeply rooted for generations. With this year’s heritage month coming during especially difficult times, we believe even more in celebrating families, neighborhoods and traditions. Even apart, we’re better together.

“In the 1800s, hula wasn’t allowed to be practiced in Hawaii; you couldn’t dance hula at all,” DeCorte says. “It’s the same way with culture. If it’s not practiced or perpetuated, eventually it’ll die.”

DeCorte was the eldest of three children raised by a single teenage mother. Her mother, Christine Valdez, took on multiple jobs at the same time – at car shops, restaurants, administrative work – to make ends meet and put her kids through private school. DeCorte often helped her two younger brothers with homework, dinners and pickups.

“It was really tough, we moved all around the island,” DeCorte remembers. “There were times where we had absolutely nothing and we were sitting on the floor, and there were other times when we were more fortunate. I always had a lot of support from my grandmother.”

When DeCorte started high school, her mother, who was interested in a career in education, started college. They graduated the same year and celebrated by parking a boat on a local sandbar and eating traditional Hawaiian foods with family – poi and lau lau, pork wrapped in taro leaves then steamed in the ground. The memory brings DeCorte to tears. Valdez, who went on to obtain a master’s degree as well, has been a high-school special-education math teacher for almost 10 years.

“It was super cool to get to share that moment with my mom,” DeCorte says. “To know that we’ve struggled together and to see her doing something for herself too, it was really special.”&nbsp; &nbsp;

DeCorte started dancing hula when she was 3 or 4 years old. It became serious once she joined Akiu’s school a few years later. The school provided structure, guidance and camaraderie. She started competing in local and international events, learned the deeper meanings of the songs and trained in different styles of dancing, like the more traditional kahiko and the more modern ‘auana.

Akiu was a “second mom” who “embodies the spirit of aloha,” DeCorte says.

“There’s a true sisterhood there,” DeCorte says about what her hula dancing school has meant. “You sweat, you cry, you make implements, you really grow up with these people. This is your family and you can’t just leave your family and go to another one.”

DeCorte sees hula not only as dance, but also as a responsibility – to preserve and share the story of Hawaii and carry on the lineage started by all the teachers before her.

People have only a “small glimpse” of Hawaiian heritage, DeCorte says. Her culture is about more than grass skirts and fruity drinks, palm trees and Pearl Harbor. She also wants people to know that native Hawaiians are fighting to keep construction off Mauna Kea – the tallest mountain in the world as measured from base to peak – and she encourages the study of Pacific Islander cultures like Palau, Samoa and Tahiti.

DeCorte, who has a degree in environmental studies, also aspires to be a voice for women in corporate settings, a vision she didn’t have when she started as a Starbucks barista in 2013.&nbsp;

“A lot of the things that I do, a lot of the family that I’m close with, and the things I practice are deeply rooted in Hawaii and what Hawaii stands for,” DeCorte says. “A culture of warmth and belonging where everyone is welcome.”

Meet Chanel DeCorte: Sharing stories, preserving culture through hula - Starbucks Stories

Meet Chanel DeCorte: Sharing stories, preserving culture through hula

During Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage month, meet a Starbucks store manager who is a lifelong hula dancer, part of a long tradition of sharing stories and history without words.

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Sumitro Ghosh arrived in Mumbai, India, for the first time as an adult, and he remembers being overwhelmed. The noise, the activity, the action, the never-ending sound of car horns. A city with about 20 million people then, and much more crowded now. It wasn’t like anything he’d experienced before.

“It’s an explosion of your senses in every way,” Ghosh recalls. “You’re literally stunned.”

A quieter moment a little later really made him understand where he was.

Ghosh had settled into his office as the chief executive officer of Tata Starbucks – a joint venture between Tata Consumer Products and Starbucks Corporation – which owns and operates all Starbucks outlets in India. As he was walking out of the building one day, he held a door open for a group of co-workers, a simple polite gesture, he thought.

“They couldn’t walk before the ceo. They stopped dead in their tracks,” Ghosh recalls. “Hierarchy and position in India is a very big deal. There were a lot of challenges overcoming the language and cultural differences, and communicating and learning to convey what I really meant and wanted.”

For Ghosh, his three years in India, starting in 2016, were more than a work assignment. They became a pilgrimage, a chance to experience and learn about his heritage and identity for himself. Until then, India belonged mostly to his parents, Bengalis from Calcutta who immigrated to the U.S. and settled in Detroit’s suburbs, where Ghosh was born and raised.

Ghosh’s story echoes a common theme for many Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI), especially those who have grown up in the U.S., children of immigrant parents, who might have lost touch with their homelands.

This May, during AAPI Heritage Month, Starbucks is proud to stand together with our AAPI partners and communities. Starbucks honors their stories, their identities and their experiences – whether they’re immigrants or newly arrived, or their families and lives have been deeply rooted for generations. With this year’s heritage month coming during especially difficult times, we believe even more in celebrating families, neighborhoods and traditions. Even apart, we’re better together.

‘I wanted to connect with who I am’

Ghosh’s childhood home was filled with Hindu deities, represented by metal statues and displayed on fabrics. A tanpura, a long-necked bass-like instrument from India, that his mother played and sang along to, was always in view. The smell of frying puris – small puffs of deep-fried bread – meant something delicious was coming from the kitchen. His mother, who wore a sari every day, and his father, a metallurgist by training, hosted a weekly radio show about Indian culture and local Indian events. &nbsp;

But outside the home, as a child, Ghosh wanted little to do with his culture. He remembers a girl in elementary school calling him “a burnt pork chop.” Teammates on his high school baseball team nicknamed him Gandhi. He was “always the brown guy” in a predominantly white area, he says.&nbsp;

“I wanted to be like my friends,” Ghosh says. “I felt different and I didn’t want to be different.”

After graduating from Michigan State University with a degree in advertising, he advanced through the food industry, at Little Caesar’s, Yum! Brands, Aramark and finally at Starbucks, which he joined as a regional vice president. In 2016, approaching 50 years old, Ghosh was offered a chance to work a three-year assignment at Tata Starbucks and return to India, a place he’d been just once before, when he was 3.

Ghosh, who lives in Chicago, is currently the senior vice president of Siren Retail, which manages all Starbucks Roastery and Reserve stores.

“I wanted to connect with who I am. I knew that I had lived a life assimilating to my surroundings and trying to not look directly into my Indian-ness,” Ghosh says. “To run a brand I love, in a country that means so much to me, where I would really fully understand what it means to be who I am, I felt this was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.

“I travelled to India because I wanted to connect with who I am. I wanted to realize what it meant to embrace my Indian heritage.”

So he moved. He lived in India with his wife, Susan, the youngest of their three children, Grace, 12 years old at the time, and Ghosh’s mother, Mita.

He learned the most from the moments of tension and culture shock. He remembers visiting Mumbai’s largest slums, expecting to feel pity for the children. Instead, he was blown away by the ingenuity, hard work and creative systems of commerce and organization. He learned the tricks for crossing busy streets. He often participated in the puja – or Hindu prayer ceremony – every time Tata Starbucks opened a new store; he had converted to Christianity in his 30s.

One of the highlights was returning to the village where his mother had grown up, Sevagram Ashram near Wardha, a little town in the state of Maharashtra. There, Gandhi had lived and created a comprehensive education plan focused on self-reliance called Nai Talim; he felt education should not be separated from work. His mother was one of the students. Her father and mother, Ghosh’s grandparents, helped as program administrators and were asked by Gandhi to help spread this education movement across India.

“You have this one perception of what India is, but once you cross the threshold into somebody’s home or business, you see the uniqueness, the warmth, the genuineness. I now have friendships and relationships for life. India is one of the most beautiful places we’ve ever been,” Ghosh says. “The love, the peace and the joy that’s characteristic of the people of India is something I take pride in.

“Now, I know who I am. I know what it means to be Indian.”

‘I know who I am’: The ceo son of immigrants returns to India - Starbucks Stories

‘I know who I am’: The ceo son of immigrants returns to India

After being born and raised in Detroit to Indian parents, Sumitra Ghosh spent three years in India as the chief executive officer of Tata Starbucks where he says he learned “what it means to be Indian.”

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Chang Miao arrived in the United States, alone, at the age of 17. It was her mother’s idea: the best hope for an only daughter who grew up under China’s one-child policy, that such a move would lead to better opportunities.

“At the time, I didn’t think through what that really meant. I’d always been a pretty independent kid,” Miao recalls. “Ignorance is bliss. Not until I lived a life here, and I tried to figure out how to live on my own, did I realize how big of a decision it was.”

For Miao, the 12 years since have been about finding her way and learning who she really is – from navigating strange foods to paying her first utility bill, from settling on her Chinese name over an American one to starting a career at Starbucks, where she currently works as a senior sourcing analyst in Seattle.

Now, during the COVID-19 outbreak, and with Asian Americans <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/fbi-warns-potential-surge-hate-crimes-asian-americans/story?id=69831920">reporting more xenophobia and racism</a> because of it, Miao wants to take another step: to stand up for her culture and against stereotypes of Asian Americans as meek and quiet.

“I want to reach out to people, acknowledge what's happening&nbsp;and let them know that they're not alone in this,” Miao says. “By sharing my thoughts, I hope to provide an avenue for people to share theirs, to provide some relief and support to each other&nbsp;so that people&nbsp;can focus on taking care of the other aspects of their lives, and staying positive.

“I want to make sure our community is being heard.”

This May, during Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month, Starbucks is proud to stand together with our AAPI partners and communities. We honor their stories, their identities and their experiences – whether they’re immigrants or newly arrived, or their families and lives have been deeply rooted for generations. With this year’s heritage month coming during especially difficult times, we believe even more in celebrating families, neighborhoods and traditions. Even apart, we’re better together.

When Miao first arrived in the U.S., she started school at a community college in the Seattle area. She stayed with a host family and ate a lot more meat than she was accustomed to. She missed the taste of the vegetables back home – cucumbers that had thinner skin and corn that wasn’t as sweet. The pace of life here was slower as well.

She transferred to Washington State University, where she majored in food sciences. She started introducing herself as Isabelle, because she was looking for English names and it sounded pretty. She ditched the name after graduation, deciding it didn’t fit anymore. &nbsp;

She was withdrawn when she first came to the U.S., fearful of participating in conversations because she didn’t get the American sense of humor, unable to track small talk. When she started working at a creamery part-time in college, making cheese, she met some friendly co-workers who helped her open up.

“That experience taught me that if I don’t tell people who I am, if I don’t speak English often and get in the conversations with the people around me, I won’t be able to grow and evolve,” Miao says. “Because of that, slowly I started to learn how to best integrate my own identity and mix with the people around me, to still show who I am and share some of my cultural aspects and the wisdom of my heritage.”

Racism in the wake of COVID-19

Miao visits China once a year, usually during the fall. When she goes home, her mother often treats her to a special crispy sweet and sour pork dish called 锅包肉 (Guo Bao Rou). Her mother visits the U.S. once a year as well, during the Lunar New Year in early February. They usually make celery and pork-filled dumplings, with the skins made from scratch.

This year, though, her mother had to cut her visit short. Because of the COVID-19 outbreak that initially hit China, her mother, who works at a government medical clinic back home in Liaoning Province, felt she had to return and help.

Miao faced a double whammy of emotions. First, following news of the outbreak back home, she was panicked and concerned for family and friends. When the virus spread to the U.S. and created a global pandemic, she experienced repercussions here too.

Her boyfriend, who is ethnically Chinese, is a medical resident, and was working a rotation at a Northwest hospital, where he heard people making insensitive remarks about Chinese people and Chinese food markets. Another friend said her godson, who is Chinese, was bullied at his school in the Seattle area because of his ethnicity.

“Stories like that break my heart,” Miao says. “It made me realize it’s happening everywhere and happening to a lot of people.”

She is encouraged by how AAPI communities have stepped up, for example, by organizing drives to gather and donate masks and other personal protective equipment.

“I would encourage people to talk about these experiences, not to feel the anger but to share their stories and hopefully to inspire each other to be kind and supportive during this time,” Miao says. “This virus, this pandemic doesn’t discriminate based on race, gender or who you are. The only way we can get through this is if we work together.”

She’s also proud of how far she’s come since she left China. One barometer is her relationship with her mother, who she’s talked to almost daily since the beginning of the outbreak.

“We’re always together, no matter how far apart we are,” Miao says. “Seeing your mom being so vulnerable and showing that emotional side… I always saw her as a figure in my life who I can depend on if I’m hurt or sad. Now, her showing me that side, it’s hard to describe, it’s very different, and makes me feel a little sad. And proud that she can see me as someone she can depend on as well.”

core/audio

Chang describes a memory from her childhood in Liaoning Province in northern China, of coming in from the icy winters to a special soup cooked by her mother.

‘Not alone’: Celebrating heritage, combating COVID-19 racism - Starbucks Stories

‘Not alone’: Celebrating heritage, combating COVID-19 racism

After coming to the U.S. from China at 17, Chang Miao’s journey led her to understand who she fully is. Now, in the wake of COVID-19-fueled racism, the Starbucks senior sourcing analyst wants to stand up for her culture.

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https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2020/not-alone-celebrating-heritage-combating-covid-19-racism/

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