Sammie Ablaza Wills

Sammie Ablaza Wills is an enthusiastic, queer, non-binary Pilipinx organizer passionate about supporting people in reclaiming their inherent power and dignity.

About
Growing up in a hustling class immigrant household, their political journey started with witnessing xenophobia against their family, fighting budget cuts in public schools, and learning about trans Pilipinos fighting colonization. Sammie is the outogoing Executive Director of APIENC, a grassroots organization building power for transgender and queer Asian and Pacific Islander people in the Bay Area, where they originally started as a youth Summer Organizer. In their current role, Sammie supports hundreds of community members to organize for rights, build intergenerational connections, and heal for trans justice. Alongside their organizing work, Sammie is a death doula and community archivist.

 

photo of Sammie Ablaza Wills

Agenda

Session 8
Oct
19
Safety For Who? A fishbowl bridging conversation on Anti-Asian violence and policing in the Bay Area
Since the start of the pandemic, we have witnessed a frightening increase in anti-Asian violence in the California Bay Area, particularly within Oakland and San Francisco Chinatown. Still, this type of violence is not new— South Asian and Sikh communities in the Bay also faced high rates of discrimination and violence following 9/11, similarly bearing the brunt of misplaced blame for a national crisis. Asian community members in the region want to prevent further violence from taking place in their neighborhoods, but they are an ideologically diverse group who have different ideas on whether...