I can’t speak or understand Hindi, much like many American children of Indian immigrants. I garble my way through popular Bollywood songs and I watch my movies with subtitles, but that doesn’t stop me from appreciating Indian cinema.

Kinetic is an Asian-American advocacy group whose primary goal is to dismantle the model minority myth via targeted action. Essentially, we serve as a public forum to facilitate an open dialogue about what it means to be Asian-American, discussing both the privileges and disadvantages that come with this identity.

Two years ago, when I was twelve years old, the United States had its presidential election in which the winning candidate was sharply against immigration. As the granddaughter of a Jewish-Mexican immigrant, the election hit close to home.

As COVID-19 continues to spread, so does the panic surrounding it. Along with the panic comes misconceptions, which unfortunately have evolved into xenophobia against Asians.

Are dating apps racist? I’ll admit, this title is clickbait. But do dating apps, which in many ways I am indebted to for liberating me from the drudgery of feigning enthusiasm when engaging with strangers, serve as a vehicle to exoticise women of colour and further our oppression by imposing racial stereotypes onto us when we are least expecting it?

As far back as I can remember, I have always been fond of stories. My parents used to read to me as a kid, and I picked up that habit early on. When I joined school, we had “20-mins per day” reading assignments which proved quite easy to me. I spent more than an hour in a day reading my favorite books, both fiction and non-fiction