E. Lim: Creative Activism and Southern Organizing
About E. Lim
Pronouns: they/ them
Age: 28
Location: Atlanta / Doraville
Organization: Demo Lab South
Dedicated to: abolition, healing justice, decolonization
Finds joy in: climbing / movement (like physically); my dog BB; goofy sh**; making heartfelt connections with other beings, esp those on the same weird wavelengths I’m riding
Inspired by: trees and mushrooms; people who’ve found ways to do anything genuinely meaningful and impactful, especially beyond what systemic oppression would have us believe is possible
Frequently used emojis: 💩 😥 ✨ 🤣 👀 👿 ☠️ 💗
Find them on Instagram: @lim_onade
Self Introduction: queer goofy southerner in Korean diaspora, woefully optimistic organizer, into the woowoo sh** 💫 ✨
E., in conversation with the Asian American Advocacy Fund. This Q&A was edited for grammar and clarity. Photographs are from E.’s personal collection.
What has motivated you to be an organizer?
I grew up in an aggressively Christian Korean family here in Georgia. I spent the first half of my childhood in Atlanta and then moved to the suburbs which was a huge culture shock for me. I didn’t really encounter a large base of other Asians until later in my early teens. My early interactions were not that great, so I had a lot of confusion around race and belonging. I was also very queer and didn’t know what to do about it. My first experience organizing was in the church as the president of my church youth group.
I went to college in New York, flung myself out of the closet, learned about systemic injustice, and became thoroughly outraged. I wanted to go into immigration law and did an internship with Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta in 2015, and realized I wanted to be an organizer. I went back to college and we did a lot of organizing around Black Lives Matter and housing justice, and I got more familiarized with what it means to organize.
In 2016, I decided to hop onto a campaign trail to learn the ropes and figure out if it was the path for me. That took me to all of these random places, my favorite of which were Southern and Midwestern small towns. I love farmland and the people who live in those areas, which is why I love organizing in the South. I made my way back to Atlanta in 2017 and got a job with Advancing Justice as a program coordinator and expanded the whole department under Stephanie Cho’s tutelage (see previous Georgia On My Mind interview). She was critical to my understanding of my identity as queer and Korean. She sent me to the Korean Queer Trans Convention where I balled my eyes out for four days straight, and it was actually a really good time!
What else has shaped your political views?
I’ve been expanding my understanding of “the political” to include our relationships to the planet, to each other, to other animals. Healing justice and transformative justice have become a big part of my political understanding and desires, especially having worked with so many people who have survived abuse and committed abuse. It’s common in Korean communities in the South. I want to create the space for us to begin unpacking those issues so that we can work toward undoing and replacing some of these behaviors with different ways of relating to each other. This has been a big part of my political journey all with an abolitionist worldview.
I got involved in electoral organizing and stayed involved because it’s a way of disrupting systemic power. We can (even if momentarily) redirect the opposition, and divert their energy away from perpetuating harm.
Take us back to pre-2018. You were part of the original Asians for Abrams campaign. What was that like?
It was a good campaign, deeply stressful, and almost killed me and Stephanie. I have a distinct memory of staying up until 3AM trying to glue “Asians for Abrams” on fanny packs and doing it backwards! We ultimately got stickers. But people loved it! We had experiences like that all the way through… scrappy and ratchet, but a really good time.
There was so much excitement about Stacey Abrams before she became a national figure, when she was a community organizer from the South, and Georgia specifically. Supporting her felt really important, especially for queer Asians who felt like the world we wanted to build in Georgia wasn’t going to be possible without someone like Stacey at the helm. It was also really meaningful to support a Black Southern woman to be at the head of our state. It was a way to practice solidarity and discuss mutual liberation with our communities.
What are other highlights from the experience?
We had lots of meaningful communal contributions to the campaign. That energy came out while knocking doors. People could sense that we were all part of a community, and would think, “I’m pretty sure I saw you at H Mart! You’re my neighbor, you’re coming here to talk about who?” It felt very real and genuine. I drove people to the polls and had conversations with aunties and uncles. I had a lot of fun. The vibe was enriching and fulfilling. It kept me organizing through the end and kept me going in the runoffs.
What’s at stake for our communities now? Why is it still important, or even more so, to elect Stacey as governor now?
For starters, Kemp is horrible. He’s our state’s own personal Trump. Voting for Stacey to keep him out and all he represents is only where we start. What’s at stake? Medicare extension, labor, reproductive justice, being able to learn in school about your own history and not incorrectly…It’s not being erased. It’s literally getting to cast a vote at all and getting to cast one in your own language. It’s all of these different pieces that are never going to happen if we continue under Kemp. His policies are anti-people and anti-democratic. We can’t forget that he used his job as Secretary of State to influence his gubernatorial bid.
What would you like the next generation of activists, for people interested in making changes in society, to know and understand?
I’d love to see more creative activism for Asian Americans and solidarity with other communities of color and other marginalized communities. I’ve seen more Asian American faces in abolitionist spaces in the South, which is really exciting. There is a need to acknowledge that East Asians, in particular, have a lot of privilege, and we must reconcile that with those who do not. I think it’s time to remind the coasts that the South has a thriving activist past and present. There’s something uniquely Southern about how we do Asian American activism, and I love it and wouldn’t have it any other way.
What makes being a Southern Asian American Activist special and unique?
We’re f***ing bad a**, we’re doing this sh** in the South! Given the history or organizing in the South and the fact that we get to be a part of its legacy, we have an opportunity for deeper solidarity, which I find so beautiful. I love that things move slower down here. I love that we get to organize in small towns that people think are insignificant but you meet the coolest people there. People say Southerners are fake, but Southern hospitality is very real. They may have a lot of feelings about who you are that are f***ed up, but at the of the day, I love the culture of the South. I love cicadas in the summer. I love being part of it as an Asian. My family has lived in the neighborhood where I am now for the past 40 years. My grandmother was one of the first Koreans here, and she didn’t speak any English. She got through those first few years by working in solidarity with other people of color who were also trying to figure out their lives here. It’s that legacy that moves me.
The Asian American Advocacy Fund is a grassroots 501(c)4 social welfare organization dedicated to building a politically-conscious, engaged, and progressive Asian American base in Georgia.
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#GeorgiaOnMyMind gives voice to diverse perspectives, life experiences, and viewpoints. With a vision for a thriving future, we share this series to shift and shape public narratives about Georgians who care about their communities and are fighting for social justice.
