Unpacking the "Untruths": Using Collaborative Autoethnography to Mentor Women of Color in the Academy

• In Event: Mentoring Approaches That Disrupt Assumed Truths Among Women Leaders

Abstract

Purpose
This study provides a narrative on the truth/untruth about the “model minority” based on the experiences of women of color in the academy. This inquiry emerged when one of the co-authors encountered a critical incident: Are Asians considered “White” in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields? Through a collective ethnographic approach, we shared and analyzed our stories and understandings on who is considered “minority”, who defines them, and who benefits from such definition(s)? The purpose of the research is to uncover “truth/untruth” regarding the model minority through co-mentoring circles and an intersectionality framework.
Theoretical framework
We use Intersectionality (Collins & Bilge, 2016) as it relates to race, gender, and immigration status to frame the ways we think about oppression and injustice, and how these affect our identities as women of color. This theory provides the space for non-White women to interrogate systemic and structural forms of power which “disempower” and create division amongst those occupying the “minoritized” space.
Methods
Collaborative autoethnography has three components: collaboration, autobiography, and ethnography. It “focuses on self-interrogation but does so collectively and cooperatively within a team of researchers’’ (Chang et al. 2012, p.17). We use this method in addition to co-mentoring circles (Jipson & Paley, 2000) to help facilitate open and honest cross-cultural and cross-racial dialogue among six women of color faculty who are African, Afro-Caribbean, African American, Chinese, Laos, and first-generation immigrants.
Results
Over the past 11 years, we as women who are a part of the C-Y-F women’s network, have engaged in work and discussion about what it means to be considered a “minority” or “woman of color”. Our co-mentoring circles have allowed us to reflect on structures within the academy and the ways some groups are privileged within these structures. In this project, we discussed whether there are hierarchies among minority groups based on ethnicity, gender, and immigrant status, and where we as women of color “fit” within structures of the academy. As we interrogated the question of who is considered a minority, our discussions revealed: 1) the tensions and conflicts among minority groups, 2) the ways the university culture of isolation and patriarchy maintains an oppressive structure that undermines cross-race, cross cultural and interdisciplinary collaboration, 3) the ideological, socio-political, and historical factors associated with the model minority myth, and 4) the importance of establishing safe mentoring spaces for minoritized women of color to make meaning of and unpack the personal implications of these myths.
Scholarly Significance
This study pushes for an understanding of who benefits from the hierarchies and subsequent tensions among minoritized people. It adds to the growing research that documents the impact and power of co-mentoring circles for women of color who work in institutions of higher education (Butner et al. 2000; Davis et al. 2011; Johnson-Bailey and Cervero 2002). Such literature posits the manner in which co-mentoring provides support for building allies and trust amongst women in the academy, and using cross-race/cross and cultural co-mentoring circles to engage in critical conversations to unpack dominant ideologies.

Authors

• Maniphone S. Dickerson, San Jose City College
  Presenting Author

• Ke Wu, University of Montana
  Presenting Author

• Deirdre Cobb-Roberts, University of South Florida
  Non-Presenting Author

• Makini Z. Beck, Rochester Institute of Technology
  Non-Presenting Author

• Anne L. Kern, University of Idaho
  Non-Presenting Author

• Christine Wanjiku Nganga, The George Washington University
  Non-Presenting Author