Photos featured in WTTW

Purpose: Create photographs of a day of action for press releases, social media, and promotional materials for organizational base-building.

Outcome: An impactful collection of images captures a community's joy, passion, and comradery that a coalition of organizations is proud to share to their followers, press, and funders.

Process:

Language access is an issue that affects many families across Illinois. In 2023, the Pan-Asian Voter Empowerment (PAVE) Coalition launched their language access and equity campaign and chose this as the lead issue for 2023’s Asian American Action Day, an annual day of legislative advocacy and civic engagement.

I was invited to document the historic journey to Springfield and capture fellow community leaders speaking to legislators about the challenges that language barriers present. Leaders shared powerful stories, some leaders even losing loved ones when emergency needs were lost in translation.

Asian American Action Day is a long and challenging event. We begin our day at 4AM and return home as late as 10PM. As an Asian American myself, I set out to capture the pain, passion, and pride of all the members of my community that dedicated their day to advocate for equity.