Weaving Past, Present, and Future: Healing Timelines with Jouapag Lee

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“Healing justice helps us, as individuals, as a community, identify the systemic oppression and traumas that we need to heal from. It also supports us in decolonizing our healing practices so we can create a a more liberated future for ourselves and our community.” –Jouapag Lee

In this week’s episode of Social Justice Origin Stories, Jouapag Lee, a passionate advocate for social justice, healing, and liberation, shares her personal journey and motivations. She reflects on pivotal experiences that shaped her activism, including a deeply personal incident of racial and gender-based harassment in college that drastically shifted her worldview and led her into activism and organizing for better campus conditions for marginalized students. Through her Healing Timelines Project, a platform aimed at providing trauma-informed healing resources with a justice lens for Hmong descendants, Jouapag addresses intergenerational trauma, forgiveness, and trust.

Jouapag’s storytelling dives into the transformative roles of anger, healing, and spirituality in activism, and highlights the intricate relationship between personal and institutional change. She also discusses the influence of Black queer feminists and Hmong women’s history on her path, and shares her insights on recognizing the interconnectedness of personal and institutional journeys, the need for both historical and future healing, and the complexities of sustaining advocacy work. 

“Possibilities exist because you exist. Our ancestors and descendants are waiting for us to weave our past, present and future. I strongly believe our healing work must be dual, dismantle our collective oppression and tap into higher vibrations that bring us to liberation and sovereignty.” –Jouapag Lee

Meet Jouapag

Jouapag is a leader, facilitator, and advocate for social justice, healing and liberation. As the oldest daughter of refugee/immigrant parents, she grew up supporting her family navigating many systems in the US that were unfamiliar to them. These experiences, along with her identities as a Hmong-American woman and English Language Learner instilled in her a strong sense of equity and justice, and led her to dedicate her life towards undoing systems of oppression.

After experiencing burnout in the community engagement and nonprofit sector, Jouapag embarked on a her healing journey, while becoming a mother herself. In 2021, she lost both her mother and grandmother. Amidst this grief, this also led her to a deep sense of purpose– she would become a new matriarch for her family and community- one that led her lineage towards intergenerational healing and connection.

To that end, Jouapag became launched the Healing Timelines Project in 2023. The Healing Timelines Project offers trauma-informed and spiritual healing resources to help Hmong descendants overcome multi-generational patterns and thrive.

Follow The Healing Timelines Project on Instagram

Name Drops, References, and Resources from Jouapag

Intersectionality, 3 Pillars of White Supremacy, Critical Indigeneity Theory, bell hooks, Pleasure Activism by adrienne maree brown, Claiming Place – On the Agency of Hmong Women, Queer Black feminists

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Social Justice Origin Stories is produced, edited, and hosted by Relando Thompkins-Jones