Growing up as a multiracial child could be difficult, both in China and in the United States. In China, Slosberg was sometimes ostracized and fetishized for her whiteness, defined by her perceived foreignness, and received unwanted attention or special treatment. In the United States, she continued to experience exclusion, including both anti-Asian racism and alienation in Chinese spaces, propelling her politicization. She was also politicized by the power and privilege she held as a mixed white person; as she realized that whites often treated her with more respect and authority than they treated other BIPOC people, she was motivated to use that privilege to advocate for racial justice.

Raised largely without religion, Slosberg lacked knowledge of Judaism until she attended college at the University of California-Berkeley, where she found mixed-race Jewish friends. The Bay Area Jews of Color community also showed her that her upbringing did not foreclose a relationship to Judaism. “There are days I feel more Asian, and moments I feel very Jewish, and some highlights in life when I feel very ‘both,’” she comments. “That sense of cultural euphoria in ‘both’ I often find when I’m among other Asian American Jews.”

The sense of “both” motivated Slosberg to co-found LUNAR: The Jewish-Asian Film Project with Jenni Rudolph in 2020. A Zoom call with five Chinese Jewish women snowballed into a film series that premiered in 2021 and included Asian American Jews of other backgrounds; the project subsequently developed into the LUNAR Collective—the first and, as of 2024, only organization by and for Asian American Jews. 

After leaving LUNAR in 2022, Slosberg worked at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, publishing six articles on China’s relations with Latin America, its political economy, and its global implications. In August 2023, she began working for T’ruah, wanting to learn about organizing from some of the best Jewish organizers. She is also a member of IfNotNow, working with its national BIJOCSM (Black, Indigenous, Jews of Color, Sephardi & Mizrahi) team. 

Although she no longer serves as its leader, LUNAR was a foundational experience for Slosberg. “Thanks to the spaces of belonging LUNAR provided me,” she writes, “I’m now at a more secure place with my Asian Jewish identity such that I can pursue more serious political work…without feeling constantly drained by racism…. I now understand…how to set boundaries, take risks strategically, and not take things too personally if racist microaggressions come up. It’s unfortunate that any JoC has to learn these skills, but having the muscle around it helps me stay with predominantly, or most of the time exclusively, white spaces.”

Sources 

“Home.” Gen Slosberg 夏夜, April 16, 2023. https://genxslosberg.com/. 

Slosberg, Gen. “How I Finally Learned to Accept Both My Chinese and Jewish Identities.” HuffPost, May 23, 2018. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/im-chinese-and-jewish-and-always-wanted-to-claim-one-identity_n_5b044e95e4b0740c25e5e2af.  

Slosberg, Gen Xia Ye. “I’m No Longer Hesitant to Say I’m ‘Chinese and Jewish.’” J. The Jewish News of Northern California, November 22, 2019. https://jweekly.com/2019/11/22/im-no-longer-hesitant-to-say-im-chinese-and-jewish/.  

“Staff.” T’ruah, January 10, 2023. https://truah.org/about/our-people/staff/. 

Webmaster. “Fifteen Jewish Women You Should Follow on Social Media Right Now.” Be’chol Lashon, March 31, 2022. https://globaljews.org/jewishand/fifteen-jewish-women-you-should-follow-on-social-media-right-now/. 

Written interview with Gen Slosberg, March 18, 2024.