[somber music] - There has been an alarming spike in the number of attacks against some in the Asian community.

[sirens wailing] - I would be lying if I told you that Black and Asian folks is just all this great peace and harmony all the time, because that's not true.

- When something happens, a member of any community is harmed, the first thing everyone wants to do of course is place blame and find out who did something.

- I think today we realize that both communities are facing the same challenge.

We both face violence, we need to help each other out.

[dynamic music] - It's about how do we nurture trust?

How do we build trust?

My name is Eddie Zheng.

I'm the president and founder of the New Breath Foundation.

New Breath for me is hope and new beginnings.

I came to the US from Guangzhou, China, at the age of 12 because my grandparents wanted me and my family to have a better life here in the United States.

At the age of 16, me and two of the people that I associated with committed a crime, a home invasion robbery that led to kidnap, to commit robbery.

And I ended up spending 21 years incarcerated.

So I grew up literally from age 16 to age 37 in the prison system.

When I was inside, once I was able to start getting educated and really have the opportunity to reflect on my actions, I was able to find my purpose in life, which is to serve the youth in the community.

[sirens wailing] - I think in 2010, it's a pretty key period that happened within the Asian community, especially our elders in the Bayview District.

- There was a lot of fear in the community.

This video that went viral was this African-American woman, this Chinese woman was on the bus.

They had an argument.

There was another incident.

A Chinese woman was standing on the platform and then this one young person would push this woman into oncoming traffic.

[menacing music] - A lot has been targeted, or really finger pointing to the African American community saying that they have been bullying the Asian community.

- There's this phrase that was coined when they were talking about Asian Americans.

They call us the walking ATMs.

So they, basically what they say is, hey, they got money.

Those people got money.

If you rob them, they would have cash, and they're just like a walking ATM.

- Eddie is someone who, like me, wants to see our communities come together and understand that we are better together, versus being divided.

Regardless of what narratives some people wanna put out there about how we are as communities.

Sometimes people tend to want to blame whole races of people, whole communities, and that's the hard part about this work.

I'm originally from Bayview Hunters Point.

Lived there early part of my years.

Bayview Hunters Point is really the last place where you can find a good percentage of the Black population, it's about 20%.

As most people probably know by now, we have less than 5% Black population here in San Francisco.

- You see people who have called this place home when no one wanted to call this place home, when no one cared about this neighborhood.

When the city wouldn't even recognize the need and the beauty in this community, black people were here.

- In the early 2000s, just a lot of immigrants, like Chinese immigrants, other immigrants, start moving into the Bayview.

- It is very challenging.

There's a language barrier.

We can't communicate what's going on.

And we do not know how to build bridges or reach out to them.

So they felt like that, a group of strangers coming in that they feel like they're being displaced, and they think they're being disrespected.

- I've seen a lot that has happened.

You could talk about it, you can cry about it.

And we need to do those things.

But what are we going to do to bridge the gap?

[upbeat music] - I think the first thing we started out was a multicultural youth leadership program.

We need to create spaces for post-cultural engagement.

We need to support our young people.

We need to start doing more work with the African American community, in that space.

It goes back to what I learned from prison, is that we have to invest our young people.

To give them the knowledge and the importance about each other's history.

How do we bring each other together and start building.

- If we don't spend time together, if we try to avoid each other's communities, then it's easy for people to divide us and create their own narratives.

And we have to work to change that.

[audience clapping] - We're here celebrating together for the 13th year.

And that's what it's about, coming together through thick and thin, through pandemics, through all.

And that's what we do, right Eddie?

- This is our 13th year.

- 13th, one three.

- There can be a lot of times when you feel defeated because you might do so much great work, and then something happens.

- We need to have a moment of silence for our brothers and sisters from the Monterey Park, the Half Moon Bay.

- [Tacing] It can't just be an event.

It takes the long haul to really be able to affect the change that's needed.

- We cannot let them win.

That's why we will continue to celebrate our unity as communities.

So the worst thing we can do is turn against each other.

The best thing we can do is focus on learning more about each other and coming together.

[upbeat music] - I'm gonna do my best to make this world a better place.

How can I continue to nurture trust so that we can continue to fight for our collective liberation and not individual liberation?

I feel like there's hope.

[mysterious music]