Dedicated Voice for Community

‘What are you?’ is a question that Louie Gong has been asked his entire life.  Now, he’s turning that question around. 

Vice President of the Board of Directors for the MAVIN Foundation, an organization that serves the mixed heritage community through promoting awareness and providing educational resources (see sidebar & links), Gong uploaded a video to YouTube in February, aptly labeled “What are YouTube?”. His video answered the question “What are You?” in his own terms while also challenging viewers to take his lead and do the same.

This call to action has gained some additional exposure and momentum as a result of an MSNBC Report on Multiracial America (5/28/08) in which Gong and the video were prominently featured.

The idea for the campaign sprang out of a discussion at a multiracial leaders summit that Gong attended in February.  Organizer Eric Hamako came up with the catchy title and Gong implemented the idea in what they hoped would be a viral way. 

“We wanted to provide an opportunity for people to reclaim the question, ‘What are you?’ and not necessarily be bound by race or ethnicity,” said Gong.

With as many different answers as there are people, Gong encourages participants to respond in any form that works for them – song, drawing or poem – the possibilities are endless.  The only stipulation – be yourself and answer the question – which is the call to action in Gong’s video. 

For Gong, the answer to that question goes all the way back to his mixed heritage upbringing.  Nooksack, Chinese, French and Scottish, Gong spent the early part of his childhood on reserve land in the small town of Ruskin, British Columbia, where he was raised by his grandparents.

According to Gong, Ruskin was a place where he felt “implicit belonging.” He was never faced with the question, “What are you?” because of he was surrounded by cousins who all had the same or similar ethnic mix, and the small community of Ruskin all knew his family. 

This comforting environment prevented Gong from ever considering that his experience was anything but the norm.  “Although my childhood had really dynamic cultural features, I didn’t realize how different or unique they were,” said Gong. 

According to Gong, he can still remember the sound of his grandfather’s Chinese opera music playing throughout the house and his grandfather sitting down to help him with his homework using an abacus.  And most of his childhood memories of Ruskin revolve around the small house he lived in with his grandparents.  On the weekends, that house would fill with aunts, uncles and cousins when his grandfather would make traditional six-course Chinese dinners.

At the same time, Gong was still living on reserve land and very much a part of the tribal community.  According to Gong, some of his most vivid memories involve going outside to use the outhouse or helping his grandfather carry drinking water back from the spring as their house did not have running water. 

When Gong was ten years old, he moved with his grandparents to a Nooksack housing area in Washington.  “The change in geography really opened me up to a barrage of experiences that we now characterize as the multicultural experience,” said Gong.  It was there that he began to realize that people reacted to his appearance, family and name differently than he was used to in Ruskin.

It’s interesting to note that Gong’s brother and sister weren’t raised in the tribal lands as he was, so they didn’t experience this shift of moving out of an insular community and into one that was less so.

Though he felt at home with his tribal community, at school, the question, “What are you?” was common, and he was subject to Asian stereotypes because of his last name. 

It was also through school that Gong had his first “racial spy” experience. As he put it, racial spies are exposed to forms of racism that people who are clearly of a specific race are not.  “Because of my ambiguous appearance, people would forget and they would be racist in front of me,” said Gong.

The disparity in his experiences began to affect the way that Gong would act, and he found himself exercising different aspects of his personality depending on the environment he was in.  “I began to compartmentalize my way of being,” said Gong. 

Gong ultimately grew into his multiracial identity in college.  That’s where he was first exposed to MAVIN Magazine, and in 2002, after a chance run-in with Matt Kelley, the founder of MAVIN, Gong got involved with the organization.  He started out volunteering with bone marrow drives and his involvement gradually escalated.

As part of his work with MAVIN, Gong co-coordinates the Mixed Heritage Center with Joe Sakay and Jenee Jahn (see sidebar & links).  The Mixed Heritage Center began as a partnership between the Mavin Foundation and AMEA (Association of MultiEthnic Americans) with the intention of providing relevant resources for mixed heritage people and families.  The Mixed Heritage Center currently has approximately 700 items cataloged – from books to magazines to blogs – their goal is to be the most comprehensive resource on the web, according to Gong.

Much of Gong’s current work revolves around his desire to reach out to those in lower-income groups and others often over-looked in the multiracial community. “I would like to see the multiracial movement become more of a multi-class movement” said Gong.

He aims to re-package information and make it accessible as a way of engaging this population while inviting them to get involved.

What many may not even realize is that Gong’s work for MAVIN, the Mixed Heritage Center and even the “What are YouTube?” campaign is all volunteer work on his part.
Gong’s day job is working at the Muckleshoot Tribal College as the Educational Resources Coordinator where he provides support services for college students and also serves as liaison to various regional and state-wide committees.  His role at the college presents a unique opportunity to take the information he works with at Mavin and the Mixed Heritage Center and apply it in a real-world setting. 

All those responsibilities are enough to stress anyone out, but Gong shrugs it off and doesn’t see it that way.  “They are all just different sections of the same circle,” said Gong.  “To me, it doesn’t feel like a lot of work – I just have all these activities that are moving toward the same goal.”

With such a positive, easy-going attitude, it’s no wonder that Gong has become a rising voice in mixed heritage circles.  His “What are YouTube?” video has been viewed over 11,800 times on YouTube (not taking into account views through other sites), has received 19 video responses and sparked substantial discussion on the web through comments, drawing attention to the movement and to Gong’s efforts. 

Through all of this exposure, one of the most striking aspects of Gong’s story isn’t his growing profile, or his creative and persistent approach to advancing the dialog, it’s his humility.  More than anything, he stresses the positive impact of others, quick to point out the efforts of organizations such as iPride, AMEA and MASC (Multiracial Americans of Southern California) and many others to advance a constructive dialog around the issues facing the community, and to bring focus to the resources available to them.

Gong is thoughtful about the influence that his mixed heritage has had in his life, enabling him to do such work.  “The broad range of cultural experiences has given me a broad range of possibilities in my life,” said Gong.  “My mixed heritage upbringing is my greatest asset.”