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Announcing the 2021 AAPI Heritage Month Keynote Speaker: Juju Chang

‘Stop the Hate: The Rise in Violence Against Asian Americans’ keynote on Thursday, April 22 at 6 pm
Mar 30, 2021

The 2021 AAPI Heritage Month Collaborative is excited to announce this year's Keynote Speaker: Juju Chang.

 

Stop the Hate: The Rise in Violence Against Asian Americans

In this keynote, Chang will share how seemingly harmless perceptions of Asian Americans as "foreigners" can be weaponized by racialized statements like "Chinese virus" or "Wuhan flu.” In addition, she investigates how within weeks of the outbreak and these types of incendiary statements, thousands of acts of racial abuse against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) were reported. She shares why we ALL have unconscious bias, how to detect it and why it matters.

Juju Chang is an Emmy Award-winning co-anchor of ABC News' Nightline. She also reports regularly for Good Morning America and 20/20. Chang has also covered major breaking news for decades for ABC News, including Superstorm Sandy, the Orlando nightclub massacre and the Boston Marathon bombing. She has traveled around the world to report on global issues including a three-country trip through Central Africa on the front lines against Boko Haram in the latest on #bringbackourgirls, and to Honduras for Femicide: the Untold War, an eye-opening look at rampant violence against women.

Chang has profiled newsmakers like Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, former Vice President Joe Biden and Oprah Winfrey as well as entertainers like Chris Pratt, Channing Tatum, Nicki Minaj and Bella Thorne. Her extensive feature reporting covers parenting dilemmas, digital addictions and social media moguls like Dude Perfect and Esther the Wonder Pig.

A former news anchor for Good Morning America, Chang joined ABC News as an entry level desk assistant in 1987 and rose to become a producer for World News Tonight. Her first on-air job was reporting for KGO-TV in San Francisco. After a year in Washington, D.C., covering the White House, Capitol Hill and the presidential election for NewsOne, she co-anchored the overnight show World News Now. Chang's work has been recognized with numerous awards including multiple Emmy's, Gracie's, a DuPont, a Murrow and Peabody awards. In 2017, she was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Front Page Awards.

Born in Seoul, South Korea and raised in Northern California, Chang graduated with honors from Stanford University with a B.A. in political science and communication. She is married to WNET President and CEO Neal Shapiro and together they have three sons. Chang is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a founding board member of the Korean American Community Foundation.

 

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This year, the Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month theme is “Stop AAPI Hate: Solidarity, Community, and Celebration.” The 2021 Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month Collaborative invites all Salem State alumni, faculty, staff, and students to come together as a community in solidarity against racism and to celebrate the richness of the Asian American Pacific Islander communities.

Since the pandemic began, we want to particularly bring attention to and condemn the violence and hatred directed at the Asian and Pacific Islander communities, while also making space to create joy, healing, education, and celebrations for the richness of Asian and Pacific Islander cultures.

See the AAPI Heritage Month event page for updates, news, and more.

The 2021 AAPI Heritage Month Collaborative includes representatives and co-sponsors from Asian Student Association (ASA), Asian Employee Resource Group (ERG), Center for Civic Engagement, Counseling and Health Services, Frederick E. Berry Library, Human Resources, Inclusive Excellence, Institutional Advancement and the Alumni Association, Interdisciplinary Studies, and Leadership, Engagement, Advocacy, and Diversity (LEAD) Office

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