Hey, everyone! We’re closing out May and celebrating Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month with a spotlight on Discord’s own Asian Friends & Kinship ERG: a place for Social, Community, Culture, and Education! The ERG recently went through a rebrand and a rename. Read on to hear about the process:
We’ve recently rebranded our ERG from AANHPI ERG to AFK which stands for Asian Friends & Kinship!
Why? Well, a couple of reasons:
- We know that our ERG encompasses more than just “Asian Americans”, as we also have community members from different places such as Asian Canadians and other communities that represent the wide array of the Asian Diaspora.
- We had a brainstorming session as to why we felt connected to AFK. From this, the idea of “Disconnect to Connect” came to life. This solidified our love for the new ERG name, given the double meaning of this acronym.
- We know AANHPI can be a handful to say. We wanted to find a way to represent our ERG & allies without any tongue twisters!
This rebrand got some of the AFK ERG’s members to think about their identities and how those play out at Discord and beyond:
Crystal
Representing Asian identity online and at work is important because it allows for authentic self-expression and helps to break down stereotypes. Growing up, I used to hide aspects of my Chinese American culture, like eating dumplings at lunch, to avoid being judged. Now, sharing those same traditions and foods with my coworkers has become a point of connection and pride as we have such a diverse range of cultural dishes for lunch at the office.
Environments like Discord make it easier to bring our full selves to work, whether it's by introducing colleagues to Mahjong, a beloved family game of mine, or supporting local AANHPI businesses through pop-up events. By sharing our cultures, we foster a richer, more inclusive community where everyone benefits from diverse perspectives and experiences.
It’s not just about representation; it’s about building a workplace where everyone can feel valued and understood.
Melody
Being part of the AFK community involves creating a safe space for myself, other members, and allies. As a child growing up in an ethnic minority community, I assumed that I would always be a minority in every space I entered.
This mindset persisted into my professional life. It wasn't until I discovered an existing ERG specifically for the AANHPI community that I began advocating for creating safe spaces. This ERG allows me to comfortably celebrate the Mid Autumn Festival with my coworkers and host arts and crafts events for Lunar New Year. Despite being hundreds of miles away from home, these small in-person events remind me to continue celebrating my culture and sharing my creative skills with my friends.
At the heart of this ERG, it's crucial to understand who you are and what you represent. As leaders of the ERG, we must continuously educate ourselves to help our members and allies better understand themselves. The stronger our roots, the more powerful our voice, and the stronger our community becomes.
Nidhi
My experience being part of the AFK ERG at Discord has been a reintroduction into a community I had written off. Living in the liminality of being a second-generation Indian American, as many children of immigrants can relate to, can feel like living in an eternal sense of shortcoming — not enough of this or that, neither from here nor from there.
The first time someone invited me to join the AFK ERG was during our very first intro chat. Having just barely met me, they identified me as part of Asian Friends & Kinship — more than a surface-level categorization, there was warmth and familiarity in the invite. I felt the same familiarity and kinship the next time I was invited into the ERG, but this time to participate in the leadership committee. Being less than a year into my time at Discord, it’s now been twice that I’ve been invited into spaces and offered opportunities I would have otherwise convinced myself weren’t for me.
In these spaces and with these opportunities, I’ve fostered kinship with people across the company. I’ve rekindled pride in my cultural identity by seeing it reflected in unexpected or aspirational spaces here. I’ve felt inspired to explore what living authentically can look like for me as I reconnect with my cultural identity in a positive and, most importantly, shared environment. Discord, at large, is committed to capturing diversity in hiring with data-driven goals and benchmarks.
To me, this signals an intentional effort against tokenization and breaking down the need to qualify belonging. The AFK rebrand embodies this sense of “come as you are” by disrupting the stereotype of the hyper-productive Asian worker. Like any community, across intersections of identity, Asians are not a monolith — in our land, language, or lived experience.
AFK aims to represent the diversity of the diaspora, in heritage and hobbies. It’s a reminder of kinship, friendship, and humanity. The celebration and solidarity I’ve experienced in the AFK ERG have given me a space to co-create belonging and explore and own my cultural identity.
In addition to the amazing community we’re creating and celebrating internally, this year, Discord is also raising funds for three organizations to drive impact to local and national AANHPI communities:
Asian Mental Health Collective - An org that aims to make mental health available and accessible to Asian communities across the globe.
Project Vision - An organization with a mission to help youth in Chicago’s Greater Chinatown community reach their full potential by providing them with tools for educational, personal, and civic development.
Contemporary Asian Theater Scene - This organization aims to be a catalyst for cultural enrichment by enhancing the vibrant and diverse artistic landscape of the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community.
If you’d like to be a part of the AFK ERGs’ journey and Discord’s company culture, we’d love to have you — consider taking a peek at our jobs page from time to time, there are always new opportunities popping up!
