Fighting Bias and Hate toward Asian Americans: An Interview with Bill Imada

In this interview, Dr. Sunny Tsai of the University of Miami talks with Bill Imada, Chief Connectivity Officer of IW Group, a minority owned and operated advertising, marketing, and communications agency focusing on growing multicultural and multigenerational markets. Many topics were covered during their conversation: Imada's career path to advertising, the role of advertising in society, the ability of the advertising industry to adapt more quickly than other sources of mediated content, historic bias and discrimination against Asian Americans in the United States, the genesis of the Wash The Hate campaign, responses to Wash The Hate campaign, the strategy behind Wash The Hate campaign, the campaign's broader impact and actions taken by other companies, how to fight the "model minority" and "perpetual foreigner" stereotypes, encouraging Asian Americans to vote, the difference between equality and equity, affirmative action, how to bridge cultural differences, and the need for older generations to create a path for younger generations to start to lead in finding solutions to society's many problems.