AAPI Solidarity Skate Event in Celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month
The Hosts: (top) Rubina, Cammie, Linda, Bunni, Camille. (bottom) Ruby, Jo, Lisa, Zelina
(left to right) Ruby, Linda, Rubina, Lisa
Unless otherwise stated, all photos are by KSOLE and permission must be granted for usage.
When you think of community, what pop-ups in your head? Prior to this event, I had a wishy-washy idea of what community was. After all, I’ve never really felt seen, heard, or fully accepted in the communities I previously was in. From the corporate world to the blogging community, I never felt “at home”. Heck, half the time, I didn’t even feel accepted in my own family! I couldn’t show up as my authentic self in any of these communities and was always fearful of being judged or criticized (which I did get a lot). However, when I put on roller skates back in October 2020 and started my journey in skating, I saw a very different response when I started sharing about it. No one was critical of how clumsy I was, faulted me for falling, or even said anything negative about the videos I shared. Instead, I got comments saying “you got this!”, “We all fall and it means you’re progressing”, “you are doing great and go at your own pace,” and more. I have to admit, I was super skeptical because how can people be this nice? From those comments, I found myself some skater friends, and these friendships blossomed quickly. At 33, who knew you could still make new friends? But here’s the kicker, these people aren’t only my friends anymore, they are now my family and my definition of community.
It all started with an idea, and this idea started out as a joke. I won’t get too much into it and if you’re interested in the story about the conception of this event, read this article written by a fellow skater, @RachelonCozy.
After two months of planning, a few Zoom meetings, phone calls, and a lot of to-do lists, 5 talented Asian American women hopped on a plane to LA to meet the 4 of us that live here. For the first time, all 9 of us were in the same room for dinner on Friday, May 14th, and I cannot even tell you how amazing the energy already was. Shout out to Morning Nights for the best plant-based dim sum! Excitement was in the air and while we had 93 RSVP’s through Eventbrite, we expected a little less because let’s be real, not everyone shows up for the events they RSVP to right? Well, at least we thought.
On Saturday, May 15th, the team and I headed out to Wingate Park to set up for the event around 2 PM. To our surprise, the rink was completely empty. We took advantage and got to work! Once 4 PM hit, skaters started showing up slowly. By 6 PM, we had at least 75-80 people and by 6:30-7 PM, we were a full house with over 100+ people. People were skating their hearts out, jamming, doing tricks, teaching one another moves, dancing, laughing, hugging, and most importantly, having fun. Overjoyed is an understatement for us. I’m still in awe that we had so many people come out and show support!
As women, we already carry so much on our shoulders on a day-to-day basis. We are already navigating through a society that has certain expectations of us, who try to dictate how we act and dress, and it is already a fight to be heard. As Asian Americans, we are constantly fighting to be seen, to be accepted, and literally fighting to just survive. When creating this event, our main goal was to ensure that we were creating a safe space for anyone and everyone to come into. A place that for just 4 hours, people can let go of their worries and stress, and just be authentically themselves— without judgment or fearing whether the environment is safe enough.
We invited everyone and welcomed every person with open arms, skater or not. We had seasoned skaters, families, even people trying skates for the very first time at our event, and together we witnessed unity. We celebrated and uplifted all our voices as individuals, and as a collective. We came together for each other and were able to help 3 organizations continue to do what they do best with the funds we raised.
Thank you to those who came out, who flew, who drove, who spent the evening with us. This was our very first event, and to be honest, we didn’t think beyond this one. However, we want to keep this going and will certainly have another one in the future so stay tuned!
We are also very grateful to our sponsors for donating/gifting us with some amazing raffle prizes. Through the raffle sales alone, we were able to raise $1,017 for AAPI Women Lead, AAPI Women Alliance, and Asian Mental Health Collective.
Huge thanks to our sponsors:
In addition, we raised another $100 through Rubina’s sticker sales (“No Boba for Racists”) and Rubina is currently fundraising for Asian Mental Health Collective on her Instagram too. So far we’re at $115!
If you did not have a chance to make it out to our event, you can still support us by donating directly to one or all of the 3 charities — AAPI Women Lead, AAPI Women Alliance, and Asian Mental Health Collective.
Side note, if you aren’t already following Rubina, do it now! She offers beginner tutorials for skating on her Instagram, but if you are looking for Youtube tutorials/reviews, follow Linda. For badass boss vibes though, head over to Ruby’s Instagram.
While you’re on that following spree, make sure to follow the other half of the team and co-hosts too!
Big thanks to our videographer, KSOLE, for helping out and also handling a bunch of other tasks throughout the event. Especially with the setup and clean-up, in addition to capturing all our best moments throughout the entire weekend.
Note: for everyone’s safety and peace of mind, we did hire security for our event but nothing happened at all and the security guards had a blast too.
Thank you to everyone who came out and supported this event, and our community. Together, we were able to raise over $1,200 for AAPI women lead, aapi women alliance, and asian mental health collective.
