Maia and Alex Shibutani on Speaking Up Against Racism as Asian Americans

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Transcript

00:00Skating is an especially vulnerable sport because you're not just being judged strictly on how fast

00:05you are and who crosses the line first. You're sharing so much of your soul and what you're

00:10doing. You are actually personally being judged. We believe in the ideals of the Olympic movement,

00:16excellence, friendship, respect. At the same time though, it's not always an equal playing field.

00:21The moments that we experienced growing up where it could have been a passing remark that may have

00:27not been intended to be negative or malicious, but simply ignorant. Having the, I guess, the character

00:35to understand that everyone's coming from a different place and that we had a mission and

00:42have a mission or a goal to be the way that we are. Because you have to respect your own time.

00:48Yeah. And just because someone's creating an environment that's maybe not the best, you can

00:53choose to create another space. But I think that also now that we have so much more of a platform,

00:58I think after the Olympics in 2018, we, you know, in the COVID years, there was an uptick in

01:06hate crimes and racism directed towards people from the Asian American and the Asian community globally.

01:12It was a learning experience for us, something that we felt very naturally inclined to do,

01:16but to speak up and to talk about those issues that directly, that we could honestly and authentically

01:23talk about because we had experienced similar things in the past. And so using our voice when

01:27we feel it is appropriate, authentic, and true.