I never thought the Asian model minority myth would catch up to me while working at a progressive social justice nonprofit.
Until one day, it did. My supervisor Irma Shauf-Bajar and I – both of us Filipino Americans – crossed a line in philanthropy that we didn’t know existed. We broke the unspoken rules on how to be a model grantee, on how to practice and call for justice without causing a scene or bringing attention to an issue in ways that would make other people – people in power – uncomfortable.
This is the story of 18 Million Rising. We’re a national Asian American advocacy organization that mobilizes communities around racial justice, abolition, and democracy. We lost $250,000 in committed grant funding due to our Palestinian advocacy within the Asian American community.
Solidarity from Asian America to Palestine
Last year, Viet Thanh Nguyen wrote a powerful essay on Asian American solidarity with Palestine in The Nation, arguing that, “If Asian Americans decline expansive solidarity, we signal that we are not going to take over, that we know our place.” In other words, if we don’t speak up, we comply and uphold the status quo.
18MR regularly flips the table on the status quo.
We have long established ourselves as an organization known for our courage in addressing contentious political issues that others hesitate to tackle. Since October 2023, we’ve led our Asians for a Liberated Palestine campaign. We have taken decisive action across issues and sectors, including leading a viral campaign demanding The Asian American Foundation remove Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), from its board due to the ADL’s blatant Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism.
Yet, it was a single solidarity statement, which 18MR posted in October 2023, that led to the Wellspring Philanthropic Fund’s board decision to cancel the final $250,000 payment of our multi-year grant and permanently end the funding relationship in January 2025.
On January 30, Executive Director Irma Shauf-Bajar was called into a closed-door Zoom meeting with three Wellspring executives, none of whom 18MR staff have ever met. There were no personal introductions. Rather, the conversation started with Wellspring naming “This is not going to be an easy meeting.”
Within minutes, Irma learned that the Wellspring board got wind of our solidarity statement and wanted to end its contract with 18 Million Rising, effective immediately. When Irma pushed for more explanation – reminding Wellspring we had been grantees in their racial justice portfolio for the