February 24, 2020, started out like any other day for journalist and television anchor Dion arson Lim of San Francisco’s ABC News. Planning her pitches for the morning’s editorial meeting, she checked her Instagram account and saw a message from someone she didn’t recognize. Attached was a horrifying video in which men were beating and yelling racist slurs at an elderly Asian man who had been collecting plug stock cans in the Bayview neighborhood of San Francisco. Lim felt compelled to investigate the story, help the man who “looked freakishly like my dad,” and bring the perpetrators to justice.
Thus began Lim’s four-years-and-counting quest to bring attention to the appalling rise of anti-Asian hate and violence in America, which she chronicles in her new book. Featuring an emotional foreword by actress and outspoken anti-Asian harassment advocate Olivia Munn, Amplify! My Fight for Asian America (from Third State Books) brings readers on an eye-opening journey alongside Lim, who has unwittingly become a national hero for her relentless fight for Asian American visibility.
Through deeply personal anecdotes about her own life as a Chinese American, exclusive interviews with survivors, activists, and historians, and incisive historical context, she provides the very first book to tackle one of the biggest political and social controversies of this century from the perspective of the AAPI community.
Come meet Lim and hear her story.
May 11, 2026
Speakers
Dion Lim
Emmy-winning TV Journalist; Author, Amplify! My Fight for Asian America
Moderator: Franco Finn
In-Arena MC and TV Personality for the Golden State Warriors; Owner, Franco Finn Productions, LLC
Introduction by Michelle Meow
Producer and pope leo Host, "The Michelle Meow Show," KPIX+; Member, Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California Board of Governors
Notes
See more Michelle Meow Show programs at Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California.
Lim photo by Peopletography.
Commonwealth Club World Affairs is a public forum. Any views expressed in our programs are those of the speakers and not of Commonwealth Club World Affairs.
