Eddy Zheng

Featured image for Episode 3 of Can we talk about with headshot of Eddy Zheng to the right

#collectiveliberation #AANHPI #proximitytocommunity #intermediarygrantmaking #hopeandhealing

Overview 

President and Founder of New Breath Foundation Eddy Zheng shares his personal story and experiences navigating incarceration and detention for 21 years, and how hope, healing and breath, led him to create a foundation focused on dismantling institutions of policing, incarceration and deportation. 

The foundation is unapologetically committed to building long-term power in Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) communities, as well as cross-racial solidarity to build collective liberation for all.
 

Key Lessons and Insights

  • Connecting to our and others’ qi - our identity, culture and history (22:01)
    Eddy emphasizes the importance of racial solidarity and how connecting to our chi (or qi) - our identity, culture and history - facilitates this. “The more we are able to learn about each other's cultures and histories that inform our identities, the better we will be able to identify that we have more in common than differences,” he shares.
     
  • Being proximate to pain and community (27:17)
    Eddy's personal story and lived experience as an Asian American formerly incarcerated juvenile lifer drove his vision for New Breath Foundation, and this value of philanthropy working in close proximity to the communities they serve flows through every piece of the foundation's work today. "We have to be at the proximity of pain in order for us to understand why we need to support those people who have been invisibilized and marginalized," he shares.
     
  • Driving community-centered solutions as a collective effort (36:06)
    Eddy discusses New Breath’s role as an intermediary grantmaker, emphasizing the importance of nurturing trust across the entire spectrum of partners in the non-profit ecosystem, from grassroots communities who know what their communities need best to institutional funding partners who allow the foundation to distribute large general operating funds. “It’s really a team effort,” he shares.


 

Ongoing Reflections

Focus on your breath, and how it connects you to every living thing. What are some ways we can connect with each other to build solidarity and collective liberation?


 

References and Resources

  • Funding to AANHPI Communities
    According to AAPIP (Asian Americans / Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy) 0.2% of philanthropic dollars go to AANHPI communities, with even less going to those in the criminal legal and deportation systems. (Seeking to Soar Report)
     
  • Model Minority Myth 
    A stereotype that perpetuates the myth that characterizes all Asian Americans as a monolith and erases differences among individuals. “This myth characterizes Asian Americans as a polite, law-abiding group who have achieved a higher level of success than the general population through some combination of innate talent and pull-yourselves-up-by-your-bootstraps immigrant striving.” (Learning for Justice)
     
  • SEARR (Southeast Asian Relief and Responsibility) Campaign
    A national policy platform that seeks to end detentions and deportations for immigrants and refugees from Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, due to the United State’s responsibility for destabilization in the region 50 years ago. (SEARR)

Eddy Zheng
President & Founder
He/Him

Eddy Zheng is the president and founder of New Breath Foundation. He works to mobilize resources to support Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (AANHPIs) harmed by violence and the unjust immigration and criminal justice systems.

Eddy’s commitment to service has been frequently recognized, most recently with the 2022 Golden State Warriors Impact Warriors Award, the 2019 Frederick Douglass 200 Award, and the 2019 Ellison S. Onizuka Memorial Award from the National Education Association.

Eddy is the subject of the award-winning documentary “Breathin’: The Eddy Zheng Story,” a contributor to the book Contemporary Asian American Activism: Building Movements for Liberation, and he was featured in the December 2021 New Yorker article, "An Education While Incarcerated." Eddy is eager to collaborate with new partners in empowering marginalized communities and promoting cross-cultural healing and global racial solidarity by engaging in culture, history, and identity. a

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