Stories of Joy + Pain by Two International Asian Graduate Students

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session Four
  In Roundtable Session: Roundtable One. Resilience and Lived Experiences That We Share in Our Communities: Transnational Experiences, Identity Developments, and Sense of Belonging (Table 11)

Abstract

To tell our truths, this collaborative autoethnography explores the stories of joy and pain of two international graduate students, South Korean and Indonesian, before, during, and after the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S. Adopting the intersectionality lens, we interpreted our joys and pains to be intertwined. Through individual and collective reflection, preliminary themes from each timeframe are 1) before the pandemic, tensions existed with white faculty members in the graduate program; joy was found in family and home 2) during the pandemic, our fears proliferated beyond the program to public spaces; joy was brought by family and the younger generation, and 3) currently, we feel less pain and more empowerment in knowing the functioning of racism and our positions.

Authors

• Wisnu Agung Pradana, University of Georgia
  Presenting Author

• Ji Hyun Hong, University of Georgia
  Presenting Author