“[Before that], I didn’t really have much of an ESEA community and speaking to friends around me at the time, I always felt like a burden,” Suen explains. “When I shared my experience on Instagram, lots of people reached out – some I knew, but not very well, and others were total strangers – and we started talking. We spent every day supporting each other, sharing things that had happened to us, from childhood even, that we’d never shared with anyone because we didn’t feel like anyone would understand.”
When the Atlanta shootings – which saw eight people, including six Asian women, killed by a white gunman – happened in March 2021, the group grew so much that the organisers decided to move the conversation onto Discord, where ESEA Sisters now has more than 500 members. “I think coming together made us realise what we needed as a community and what was missing,” Suen explains. “We didn’t really have a plan.”
Fast forward to today, and ESEA Sisters runs a whole host of events and meet-ups – whether that’s attending an anti-racism protest, working with the Hackney Chinese Community Services, or going for a nature walk. “The good thing about ESEA Sisters is that there’s no real hierarchy – anyone can just put their hand up and organise an event,” Linda Tieu, a brand strategist, says. “We have so many talented people within the group: there are fashion designers, stylists, artists. We have a lot of chefs, DJs and musicians; we have lawyers and accountants.”
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