Emily Khym, Contributing Photographer

The Asian American Cultural Center’s Political Action and Education Team and Yale Student Environmental Coalition held a “Climate Racism & Creating Environmental Joy” teach-in on Sunday evening at the AACC.

The AACC’s PAE team led this initiative in an effort to educate the Yale community about climate racism and highlight the works of Asian artists resisting environmental despair. During and following the teach-in, participants began creating an upcycled quilt from fabric scraps and old clothes.

“The goal of the event is to educate attendees on environmental racism, climate racism and how colonialism interacts with both,” said Kiswa Rahman SPH ’25, the lead organizer of the event. “Along with this, we wanted to explain how centering joy is one way to resist while continuing to work together in community.” 

Rahman first gained inspiration for the event when she was working on a project on climate racism and flooding in Pakistan last year. After stumbling across the truck artist Ali Salman Anchan, she was struck by the beauty of artwork that centered joy, community and healing as a means of resistance and liberation. 

The event began with a presentation from Andrew Lee ’27 and Marissa Halagao ’27, undergraduate student co-coordinators for the AACC PAE team, on the topic of climate racism — how the environmental crisis disproportionately impacts racial minorities in the United States and formerly colonized peoples abroad. 

“It is difficult to imagine how the Yale community can work to fight against climate racism; confronted with such a large and sweeping force, our efforts seem small in comparison. Yet, there is power and beauty in solidarity efforts,” Lee said. “We can continue to learn, continue to collaborate with organizations that work locally with impacted populations, and continue to create environmental joy.”

After the teach-in, participants created an upcycled climate justice quilt from fabric scrap and old clothes. The AACC PAE team had led a fabric drive for two weeks prior to the event. 

In the coming months AACC members will assemble the quilt to be donated to organizations that support victims of climate crisis survivors. 

“I want this event to give hope to attendees as we create our quilt, embedded now with new knowledge and an inspiration to keep fighting on behalf of those who are disenfranchised and disempowered by climate and environmental racism, recognizing that artists and communities have always been resisting and innovating in the face of struggle,” Hagalao said. 

Ultimately, the event aims to contextualize and reframe the climate change movement as a call for justice and liberation of all oppressed peoples. 

Lee added that in addition to addressing the racialization of the climate crisis, the event also aims to bring light to Asian artists in particular who have used their creativity as a method of bringing hope.

Participants expressed urgency in addressing the climate crisis. For Peter Tran ’25 who attended the event, the teach-in helped build social consciousness on a relevant issue. 

“If there’s any moment when we need to be showing up more for each other, I think the time is now,” Tran said. “We shouldn’t wait until climate refugees are knocking on our doorsteps for us to show up for and take care of each other. In this country, it’s so easy to be stuck in your own individual wants and needs. But, as today’s presentation showed, the time for that selfish line of thinking is long gone.”

Bella Garcia ’26, co-president of the Yale Student Environmental Coalition, said that the event marked the start of a new chapter for the coalition, which has made fostering relationships with campus cultural centers a new goal. 

One of the ways the coalition has done so is by adding the Affinity Chair position, which according to Garcia, is responsible for creating spaces for “open dialogue, community building and meaningful intercultural interactions.” 

Victoria Lu ’25 who is the first active Affinity Chair shared that the experience of being able to shed light on such an important event was “incredibly rewarding.” 

“I hope participants, including myself, will take away the meaningfulness of creating art with people,” reflected Jenny Liu ’26, co-president of the Yale Student Environmental Coalition. “I also hope folks will appreciate the need for art and creativity as a means of resilience and joy. I think a doom and gloom perspective is persistent in the climate world, but figuring out how to create in the face of that is really crucial.”

Yale has set a goal to achieve net-zero emissions by 2035.