Stephanie Cho: Building Up Leadership in Politics and Justice

Main Image description: Text reads “Stephanie Cho.” Image of scattered native Georgia flora over a layered watercolor background in shades of pink, blue and purple. Flora include: Crossvine (with bee) and a Cherokee Rose. At the center is a circle image of Stephanie smiling at the camera, outside with the sun shining on her black, wavy hair. Stephanie is standing in front of a lush green tree background. She wears a black shirt and red lipstick. Below is the text, “Everything is at stake now … people don’t realize how it is in Georgia. Asian Americans need to build leadership pipelines in justice work. We need to be political and stand for something.” Bottom center is Asian American Advocacy Fund’s organizational logo and “Georgia on my mind” above a Monarch butterfly.

About Stephanie

Pronouns: she/her
Age: 45
Location: Atlanta, GA

Organization: Demo Lab South
Dedicated to: Real Love
Finds joy in: My kid, cat, partner, and plants
Inspired by: Weird stuff and astrology
Frequently used emojis: 👀😺
Find them on Instagram: @ms.stephanie.cho

Self Introduction: I’m Stephanie Cho, I go by she/her pronouns, I’m a queer mom, and I’m a transracial adoptee. I was shaped early by my racial formation as the only immigrant in a white family. I grew up in an intensely abusive relationship with my adoptive family, so I left home when I was 16, and I’ve been on my own ever since. The experiences of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation have shaped who I am and what I see as justice work.

This Q&A between Stephanie and the Asian American Advocacy Fund was edited for grammar and clarity. Photographs are from Stephanie’s personal collection.

What has motivated you to organize? How did you come to form your political views?

When I started to get older, I went back to Korea and I began to understand the circumstances of why I was an adoptee. I thought a lot about the bigger picture of imperialism. Even where I was born was right outside a U.S. military base.

I went to Portland State for college and was working at the Sexual Minority Youth Recreation Center (that’s how old I am, we were called “sexual minorities”!), and I was also working at an Asian Family Center with mostly Hmong youth who were involved with gangs. I was feeling this very intense split between my identities as queer and Asian. I wanted to address the issues facing my communities beyond direct social services. In my mind, there had to be another way to get at these problems. So I started to do more organizing with a group called Lesbian Avengers and we started this other group called Raging Exotics, working towards getting Asian Americans Studies classes on campus. I was also in a radical cheerleaders group that mobilized actions around immigrants’ rights. I was kind of an anarchist back then… and now I do policy work. So that’s how my trajectory has evolved.

I still feel really excited and passionate about doing justice work. Now that I’m older, I’m seeing patterns repeat, the good and the bad. When people are discouraged and ask me, “how do you keep it up?” I tell them I’m inspired by other people all the time, especially the young people.

Take us back to pre-2018. How did Asians for Abrams begin?

I moved to Atlanta nine years ago from Los Angeles. The executive director was leaving Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta, and I agreed to help. During the legislative session in Georgia in 2015, me and a Korean Republican were the only Asians in the Hall. No interns, no staff, no community members were Asian. It was shocking coming from the West Coast. So I joined Advancing Justice as the executive director. We were fighting a slew of anti-immigrant bills every year and getting our butts kicked. It was very clear we didn’t have the numbers in terms of voter power. The Asian population had a lot of potential but it just wasn’t organized. We needed to be more overtly political.

In 2018 we started a 501(c)4 so that we could support political candidates who are committed to advancing the social welfare of Asian communities in Georgia. [1] It was a shoestring in the beginning! I pulled our amazing young staff, E. Lim [whose story will be shared in the next Georgia On My Mind, stay tuned!] from their civic engagement position on the 501(c)3 side to do our first campaign which was Asians for Abrams. I literally charged the first expenses on my credit card. Nobody gave a s*** about what we were doing and thought we were wasting our time. But what we brought in pure volunteerism started to grow.

Stacey Abrams was resonating with the people, like Obama did in 2008. I knew her from legislative stuff. She was always a supportive, wonderful person, particularly for the Asian American community, and for me personally as well. The energy and the groundswell of support was there and really got people excited and motivated to get out the vote for Stacey.

What were some highlights and challenges about the campaign?

We were a staff of three: myself, E and Raymond — another former Advancing Justice staff member. The three of us pieced it together. Every week, we would create this lovely circle moment with the volunteers, where we would gather, share a meal, and talk. People came from other states, took time off, and volunteered on weekends. There was no sitting around. The energy of building that community first helped motivate people. People were so excited to see Mandarin speaking canvassers for a progressive candidate in Georgia.

After [Brian Kemp stole the election], we had to do so much legal advocacy and litigation to fight for the right to vote for our communities and for basic language access [translation of voting documents] that counties were supposed to provide. We joined elections boards to try to address the numerous issues that happened every year. A combination of lawsuits and organizing in-between elections set the stage for the sea change in 2020. We worked county by county to advocate for language access. People understood then the seriousness of how to build power. We were being overtly political as Asian Americans, and we stood for something.

What’s at stake now? Why is it important to elect Stacey as governor?

Everything is at stake, that’s the bottom line. People outside of Georgia don’t realize how it actually feels here. I know there’s voting fatigue in Georgia, we’ve been in the news so much and there’s been so much scrutiny on our state. Meanwhile, there’s been the radicalization of so many Asian Americans on the Right, which should be very concerning. It’s more important than ever to get out the vote for Stacey.

What would you like the next generation of people interested in making changes in society, to know and understand?

How do we raise the next generation to not take on their parents’ terrible traumas and reanimate them into the world? I think about this a lot as a parent.

Hopefully Asian Americans are thinking about how they should not align themselves with Whiteness and how that’s hurt them really deeply, and every move to do that puts more of a wedge between them and other communities of color. I’m hoping that more Asian Americans start doing radical justice work. I worked on the spa shootings [when eight people were killed, six of whom were Asian women, in Atlanta in March 2021], and there’s still that collective trauma. My hope is that there’s more alignment and solidarity between Asians with Latinx, Black, and Indigenous communities. I have a lot of hope for the next generation. I am part of this transformative justice parenting group. Parents now are trying to think about ways to raise kids differently.

What makes being a Southern Asian American Activist special?

I’ve had the pleasure of working with the best organizers ever. I see so much brilliance here in Georgia. I fell in love here. I’m raising my kid here, and my kid is Southern. She was born in Atlanta. When people are like, “I didn’t know there are so many Asians or Koreans there.” Those communities exist here. There’s some magic that’s hard to describe because it’s so hard. It doesn’t have the ease of California. But it has the soul, heart, and all that stuff.

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.

[1] A 501(c)4 is a social welfare organization designated by the IRS that can engage in political activities.