Our Words, Our Truths: Storytelling for Collective Identity and Community Engagement

This eclectic presentation will map out my own journey as an Asian American and immigrant storyteller and delineate how my personal stories reflect and mirror the urgent social concerns of our time. It also includes my experiences as a storytelling producer, who engages in community-based storytelling. This workshop aims to provide community builders with the foundational skill set to build intimate communities through storytelling.

The workshop includes the following components:

• Why is storytelling important to our understanding of personal and collective experiences?
• How can we use personal stories to critically reflect urgent social issues of our time, such as racism, xenophobia, gender-based violence, etc.?
• What does community-based storytelling mean? How do we use personal storytelling for collective identity formation and community engagement?
• How can we strategically use storytelling to address the issue of equity, beyond diversity and inclusion?