Ellen Choy
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[00:00:00] Dmae: So Ellen would you first start off by just introducing yourself with I’m like I am or I’m and just tell me a little bit about I guess your background and and how you got involved with activism in general.
[00:00:15] Ellen: I’m Ellen Choy. My name is Ellen Choy and. I am a member of Asians for black lives here in the Bay Area. Let’s see I first got politicized when I was I guess when I was in college I actually got politicized through hip hop.
[00:00:34] I was a young person of color at UC Berkeley and hip hop and spoken words showed me how to unapologetically use your voice to resist the, just all of the injustices that I was seeing around me. And from there I took a lot of classes in environmental policy and when I got out of school I started organizing in the environmental justice community. And that changed my life and I became a grassroots community organizers from there. And that was about 10 years ago. So ever since I’ve been working in social racial economic and environmental justice work both in my day job I’ve been blessed to work in nonprofits where I can get paid from activism but I also have been doing a lot of volunteer work as well grassroots organizing with the Korean community and more recently with Asians for black lives.