Invited Talks
Fresno State University
2020-2021 ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES SPEAKER SERIES
Friday, April 30th, 2021
The SEAAsterScholars Collective is committed to advancing knowledge and understanding of the postsecondary experiences of SEAA students, staff, and faculty. Our goals are to raise awareness of SEAA experiences in higher education, to increase understanding and literacy regarding the issues SEAAs face, and to ensure that this knowledge is produced by those within and from our communities.
Conference Presentations
SEARAC MOVING MOUNTAINS (2019)
Homemaking: Building a SEAAsterScholars Collective
How do we make a home in spaces not built for us? We are Southeast Asian American (SEAA) womxn in higher education and members of the SEAAster Scholars Collective and we commit to advancing scholarship about, with, for, and by SEAA communities. The Collective is our home. In this session, we share the ways we facilitated communication and connection despite physical distance, leveraged higher education resources to conduct research together, and supported each other as fellow SEAAs. Join us in dialogue to share experiences and strategies to build other collectives across your networks. Let’s build with and for each other.
ASSOCIATION for ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES (2018)
SEAAsters in the Struggle: Experiences of Southeast Asian American Women in Graduate School
The roundtable highlighted a collective reflection of our racialized and gendered identities and barriers encountered during our educational experiences as SEAA womxn. By sharing our experiences, we hope that it will create dialogue among students and scholars and allow them to reflect on their educational experiences. Moreover, this roundtable can serve as a liberatory practice to create collective spaces of resistance in higher education.
association for the study of higher education (2018)
Southeast Asian American Doctoral Women Spaces For Community, Resistance, and Survival in the Academy
The experiences of women of color in the academy are often rendered invisible, particularly due to bodies of research that absorb this population underneath broader racial and gender categories (Souto-Manning & Ray, 2007; Turner, Gonzalez, & Wong, 2011). For Southeast Asian American (SEAA) women, often subsumed under categories such as "Asian Americans", "women", and "students of color", current literature neglects to consider how this population inhabit multiple social identities and occupy a unique position within institutions. By embodying racialized and gendered identities, women of color, including SEAA women, face unique challenges in higher education (Harris, 2007), including unsupportive institutional climates, little respect for their scholarship, silencing of their voices (Rodriguez & Boahene, 2012), lack of mentorship, and an expectation to dedicate a disproportionate amount of energy on service (Aguirre, 2000, Chowdhry, 2014; Nair, 2014; Thomas & Hollenshead, 2001). In response, women of color have come to create their own spaces within the academy through collective storytelling and resistance. Through both informal and formal networks, women of color have developed sister circles, beloved communities, and other collectives that center their experiences. This paper explores the significance of these spaces in crafting counternarratives and creating a sense of belonging for Southeast Asian American women doctoral students in the academy.
association for the study of higher education (2017)
(Up)Lift As We Climb: A Collaborative Autoethnography of Southeast Asian American Women in the Academy
In this collaborative autoethnography, we explore the experiences of four self-identifying Southeast Asian American (SEAA) women in doctoral programs. Based on a collective reflection of our racialized and gendered identities, findings address barriers that SEAA women encounter during their educational experiences. Furthermore, this study identifies several major themes that shape the decision-making process and navigation of higher education. We discuss how this process can serve as a liberatory practice to create collective spaces of resistance in doctoral programs.
American College Personnel Association Convention (2017)
Cultivating Inclusive Environments: (Re)Focusing on the Assets, Skills and Knowledge of Southeast Asian American Students
Southeast Asian American (SEAA) students are too often overlooked or misunderstood within higher education settings. Typically positioned as the exception to the model minority myth, strategies to support SEAA students can run the risk of being approached through a deficit lens. Through the use of the Culturally Engaging Campus Environments (CECE) Model, this session will (re)focus the conversation about this population in ways that highlight their assets, skills, and knowledge.
NASPA CONFERENCE (2016)
Southeast Asian American College Students Taking Charge in Their Communities and Their Education
Southeast Asian American students are too often overlooked or misunderstood within higher education settings. This session will equip student affairs professionals with the knowledge and suggested practices for engaging Southeast Asian American students’ identities in their efforts to support student success. We focus on student-initiated programs and how we can support students’ efforts as student affairs professionals.
