Intersectional Identities, Disrupted Discourses: Asian American Female Teachers' Classroom Performances

• In Event: 66.035 - Situating the Identities of Asian/American Girls and Women Across Multiple Contexts and Institutional Settings: New Paradigms for Explicating "Gendered" Experiences

Abstract

Introduction
My study of Asian American teachers broadens understandings of Asian American identities. My findings disrupt mainstream racial discourses that frame Asian American identity as binary dichotomies (Ngo, 2010), and demonstrate how performances of intersectional identities subvert the power that is produced through dominant notions of gender, faith, class, race, and ethnic identities.Intersectionality acknowledges and affirms the interactions between race, class, gender, and other social positions in shaping identity and relationships (Crenshaw, 1989; Shah, 1997; Hune & Nomura, 2003). I use intersectionality to emphasize how Asian American teachers’ identities are shaped by many factors, only one of which is race. By focusing on identity vis-à-vis intersectionality, I am better able to understand how Asian American teachers wrestle with issues of privilege and power in identity production.

Methods
My study is situated within a larger study of 25 teachers. Snowball sampling was employed to recruit participants, who participated in an initial two-hour semi-structured interview and a one-hour follow-up interview. This paper’s findings are based on interviews with two teachers: Bounmy and Nicole, which were analyzed with narrative analysis. “Narrative analysts interrogate intention and language--how and why incidents are storied, not simply the content to which language refers” (Reismann, 2008, p. 11).

Findings
Bounmy is a Laotian American refugee who grew up in a low-income neighborhood. She stories her identity around “beating the odds” and encourages her low-income students to do the same. Her Asian American, class, female, and Christian identities affect the way she relates to and connects with her students. Though some are more salient and prominent than others, they work together in her enactment of the teacher who has “made it”. Bounmy’s performed identity disrupts oppression and privilege.

Nicole was born in Hong Kong, and lived in the Philippines before moving to California during elementary school. Unlike Bounmy, she grew up with class privilege. Although her identities are vastly different from those of her students, she makes learning relevant to their experiences. She draws on their prior knowledge and strengths to interest them in the curriculum and in school. Nicole’s use of critical pedagogies in combination with her Asian American, Christian, middle-class, and female identities produce a social justice advocate identity. Importantly, this intersectional identity resists the view that Asian Americans are model minorities rather than people of color (Kim, 1999).

Significance of study
The discourses around the model minority myth and the prevalence of the Black/White paradigm overshadow experiences of other communities of color. My study’s findings provide further understanding of how Asian Americans understand and negotiate race-based and teacher identities within a society that claims to be post-racial but continues to perpetuate stereotypes and inequalities.

Author

• Candace J Chow, University of Utah