A Heartful Autoethnography of an Asianized Mother Scholar's Traumatic Experiences During COVID-19 and Using Expressive Writing as Therapeutic Tool

• In Event: Creative Narrative Expressions During COVID-19

Abstract

Desperate for emotional relief from COVID-19, I turned to narrative inquiry and writing as a way of knowing and healing, I took on the lens of AsianCrit and Critical Feminist Theories to further investigate how gender, race, culture, and power intertwined and shaped my experiences in my expressive writing. Heartful Autoethnography as a methodology weaves the constructed themes together: 1) out-of-body experience(s), 2) my illegal body, baby smuggler, and COVID-19 superspreader, 3) my empowered inner voices, 4) covering and identity crisis, and 5) baby love to (Asian) self-love. The paper reveals the traumatic experiences as an Asian academic mother and the benefits of Expressive Writing for mental and physical health and its implication for the field of education.

Author

• Tipsuda Chaomuangkhong, Arizona State University
  Presenting Author