The Ethical Rainmaker

How I Became An Accidental Sweatshop Overlord w Kristina Wong

Episode Summary

International comedienne, performance artist, actress and elected official Kristina Wong, talks about the subversive game, the performance of her lifetime (elected office) and her journey as an accidental sweatshop overlord through her latest mutual aid project and book The Auntie Sewing Squad. Based in LA, California learn about the connection between art, organizing and radical politics.

Episode Notes

Kristina Wong does some pretty incredible things with her life energy and creativity - damn! 

• You can find Kristina Wong on:
  • Facebook: @ilovekristinawong
  • Insta: @mskristinawong
  • Twitter: @mskristinawong
  • Venmo: @givekristinawongmoney

In this episode we talked about several bodies of work she has created including:

• The Auntie Sewing Squad
  • The massive mutual-aid network of volunteers across the United States, sewing homemade masks for vulnerable communities - like asylum seekers on the border,  which Kristina started. In early 2022 they are still sewing and involve hundreds of Aunties, shipping thousands of masks to vulnerable communities across the US. 
• The Book = Auntie Sewing Squad: Mask Making, Radical Care, Racial Justice (released 2021) talks about America’s pursuit of global empire at the cost of its citizens, the significance of women of color performing a historically gendered and racialized invisible labor…
  • And was written with cool coauthor Rebecca Solnit
• Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord
• Kristina Wong for Pubic Office
  • She’s actually an elected official at her neighborhood council in LA’s Korea Town
  • Legit check out her hand sewn props and if you have time, her interview on Sew and So is great! (and literally a sewing podcast.)
• Big Bad Chinese Mama.com a performance piece, her fake harem of brides - a “sophomoric” project that is still up!
• She’s been a guest on late night shows on NBC, Comedy Central, NFX…I watched ALL of these TV spots and you’ll enjoy them too!

Kristina references:

• Jose Luis Valenzuela and Teatro Campesino as well as Guillermo Gomez Pena as key artists of inspiration 
• Art to Action, as the generous fiscal sponsor for The Auntie Sewing Squad
• Wild Harvest Food Bank is an LA food bank, operates as a grocery store for all, and their CEO Glen Corrado, 
  • $50 p/month food challenge, where she survives on that budget every month!
• Upcoming Project? Kristina plans a concept called Food Bank Influencer working on perhaps a food bank performance space to benefit the Navajo Nation - a nation which she reports, has only 13 grocery stores spread across three states serving 300,000 tribal citizens.