East Brunswick Builds Bridges to Combat Anti-Asian Racism

East Brunswick Mayor Brad Cohen, the East Brunswick Human Relations Council and East Brunswick Public Library team up to present the Facebook Live program “Building Bridges: Combating Anti-Asian Racism” on Tuesday, April 20 at 7:30 pm.

The goal of this program is for the whole community to build bridges together in an effort to show unity due to the recent rise in anti-Asian racism. This event is streaming on Facebook Live. To view the event, go to the East Brunswick Human Relations Council’s Facebook page at www.tinyurl.com/ebhrcouncil.

The program features a diverse group of panelists who will provide educational background and share their unique perspectives on this topic. The panel includes Sylvia Chan-Malik, Khyati Y. Joshi and Thomas Wong.

Sylvia Chan-Malik, Ph. D, is an an Associate Professor in the Departments of American and Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. She talks, teaches, and writes about the intersections of race, gender, and religion, with a focus on the history and cultures of Islam and Muslims in the United States.

She is the author of Being Muslim: A Cultural History of Women of Color in American Islam. She speaks frequently on issues of U.S. Muslim politics and culture, Islam and gender, and racial and gender politics in the U.S. Her commentary has appeared in venues such as NPR, Slate News, The Intercept, Daily Beast, PRI, Huffington Post, Patheos, Religion News Service, and others.

Khyati Y. Joshi, Ed. D, is a public intellectual whose social science research and community connections inform policy-makers, educators, and everyday people about race, religion, and immigration in 21st century America. She has lectured around the world and published ground-breaking scholarly and popular work in her field, while also serving as an advisor to policy-makers and a leader in the South Asian American

community. Her most recent book is White Christian Privilege: The Illusion of Religious Equality in America.

In addition, she is a Professor of Education at Fairleigh Dickinson University and a social science researcher whose work focuses on the intersections of race and religion in the United States. She frequently consults with school districts, independent schools, the judiciary, non-profit organizations, faith communities, and business on fostering equity and inclusion.

Thomas Wong received his Masters of Divinity from Trinity International University in 2001. Since that time he has pastored at Rutgers Community Christian Church (2001-2007) and is currently the senior pastor at

Point Community Church; a multiethnic and multicultural congregation here in East Brunswick (2009-Present). As part of the Southern Baptist denomination, he has served on the Coaching Team & Assessment Team for new pastors and planters in the NJ/NY area, as well as President of the Asian-American Fellowship. He is currently a member of the East Brunswick Inter-faith Council, as well as the East Brunswick Alliance for the Prevention of Alcoholism and Drug abuse.

Instead of an honorarium, the speakers requested to have funds donated to Stop AAPI Hate, a non-profit organization that tracks and responds to incidents of hate, violence, harassment, discrimination, shunning and child bullying against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States. Information about this cause can be found online at www.stopaapihate.org.