Co-Creating Ibasho With Chinese Immigrant Youth in the United States: An Autoethnographic Exploration

• In Event: Moving Beyond the Forever Foreigner–Honorary White Binary: Asian/American Education Scholars on Re/Claiming Diasporic and Transnational Lived Experiences

Abstract

Recent demographic reports show a 46-percent increase of the Asian American population from 2000 to 2010 (U.S. Census, 2012), which could be attributed to the large number of Asian immigrant students who are entering the American education system. Thrust in an unfamiliar country and become a racial and linguistic minority, these students often struggle from cultural and linguistic adjustment to their new lives in the United States. They are often labeled as “model minority” with high academic and educational attainment, which dismisses their experiences of discrimination, racialization, and marginalization in a new country (Lee, 2009; Louie, 2004). More research is needed that explores the challenges and hopes of recent Asian immigrant youth and support the creation of spaces where they could thrive.

In this study, I use a Japanese concept of Ibasho, which means any places, spaces, and communities where one feels a sense of “security, safety, and comfort” and receives “acceptance and recognition from others” (Sumida, 2003, p. 3). For example, Ibasho for a student could be his/her room, a dinner table, a park, a mall, a community center, or a street, where he/she enjoys spending time and feels relaxed and comfortable.

Using autoethnography that connects “personal to the cultural” (Ellis and Bochner, 2000, p. 739), I reflect on the possibilities and constraints of Ibasho project, which I conducted with 18 Chinese immigrant high school students who participated in a youth program of CCFF, a Community Based Organization located in Chinatown on the East Coast of the United States. Through collaboration and support of CCFF staff, the project consisted of a lecture on the meaning of Ibasho and sessions where the students created a poster that represented their Ibasho in China and the United States. I also conducted a few individual and group interviews where I asked the students about their childhood days, family relationships, school experiences, future dream, among others, which all relate to the concept of Ibasho.

Reflexive analysis revealed that this project allowed the students to deepen their understanding of their own Ibasho both in China and the United States, and consider practical ways to create more Ibasho in a new environment. Through drawing posters and participating in multiple interview sessions, they gradually became aware of important people and places in their lives and some components and characteristics of their Ibasho (e.g., familiarity, diversity, safety, similarity, and joy). I asked questions related to Ibasho to co-identify characteristics that compose their Ibasho in the interviews and attempted to empower them to see their ability, skills, and agency to expand their Ibasho in the United States. The interview session was also valuable as the students and I were able to question, challenge, and co-construct the hybridized version of this concept to make it more relevant to their lives. This presentation illuminates the potential role of educational researchers in assisting immigrant youth to raise awareness of their social worlds and transforming alienating spaces into spaces where youth could feel a sense of Ibasho.

Author

• Tomoko Tokunaga, Keio University