How sewing masks for the vulnerable stitched together an empowering Facebook community
Last March, World Arts and Cultures/Dance alumna and performance artist Kristina Wong created the mutual aid mask-sewing Facebook group "Auntie Sewing Squad." Since then, the group, which includes artists, professors, teachers, homemakers, health professionals, and screenwriters, has made and donated over 300,00 reusable cloth masks.
"Let me tell you from the get-go that the creator of one of the nation’s largest and most diverse grass-roots mask-making efforts did not intend to start a movement, to mobilize the masses, to spend the last year searching out under-resourced communities and commandeering fabric and elastic to give away thousands of COVID-19 face masks.
A year ago, performance artist Kristina Wong started a Facebook group called the Auntie Sewing Squad to get people to help sew COVID-19 masks. She’s now working on a show that chronicles that experience, titled “Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord.”(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times) A year ago March, before she launched a Facebook group called the Auntie Sewing Squad, performance artist and comedian Kristina Wong was like so many of the rest of us at the start of the pandemic. “Grief. Uncertainty. Panic. Anxiety. Doom. Anyone else?” she posted on Facebook.
Suddenly, she was a shut-in, stuck in her Koreatown apartment, watching her life as she’d planned it implode. She’d been about to tour her latest show. But date after date canceled, leaving her out $7,000. In live videos, she mused that this might be a time to clean the house, organize computer files, “turn inward.” But that isn’t what she did.
Wong turned outward. She offered help to others.
This is a story about how help, once offered, often sparks more help in unexpected ways.
From the beginning of the pandemic, Wong, 42, was conscious of her privilege. She had savings. She had a home and — a self-proclaimed hoarder — ample supplies. She didn’t see government stepping up for those who didn’t.
As a representative on her neighborhood council, Wong successfully lobbied for a portable toilet and hand-washing station for people living on nearby sidewalks. She brought them tents, quarters for laundry, Tide Pods, socks from her own drawers.
She also had some fabric and some elastic and a Hello Kitty sewing machine, which she used to make sets and props for her shows. So she found a pattern online and made a mask."— Nita Lelyveld, Apr. 3, 2021
This post is an excerpt. Read the full article on the Los Angeles Times website.
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