The Seeds We Plant: Creative Storytelling With Asian Organizers for Liberatory Education

• In Event: Vice-Presidential Session. Connecting Home(lands): Continuing Legacies of Pacific Islander and Asian Anti-Imperialism Across Oceans

Abstract

In this paper, I sought out the stories and pedagogical practices of 13 Asian non-binary folks and women who are organizers, community educators, and artists on Duwamish and Coast Salish lands. More specifically, this paper asks “How do their lived experiences inform their values and pedagogy regarding how they pass down critical social justice knowledges to Asian youth in their respective community work?”.

An anti-imperialism lens and Asian Critical Race Theory (Museus & Iftikar, 2014; Curammeng, Buenavista, & Cariaga, 2017) framed the interview questions and group activities collaborators and I engaged in. These lenses offer insight into the impacts of how global contexts impact their personal stories and hopes for the future of liberatory education.

These community collaborators and I engaged in conversations, focus group discussions, and creative reflections in a shared space. I utilized an arts-based research approach through creative modalities including, but not limited to, letter writing, photovoice, autobiographical mapping, food stories, collaging, and altars. Bailey and Van Harken (2014) emphasize the ways multi-modal forms of express facilitate learning and deep reflection that words along may not be able to fully express. I will use this method particularly to achieve data for document analysis.

I use video and audio recordings of one-on-one introductory interviews, five focus group discussions, document analysis, and a final one-on-one reflective outro interview.

Three major themes arose from the data. The first includes the presence of fractals (brown, 2017), or the importance of modeling their anti-imperialist values in their interpersonal relationships in pursuing collective liberation. The second theme was the sense of urgency for global solidarities, recognizing how their legacies and stories are related to other communities whom they seek to be in solidarity with. The final theme was the significance of critiquing our own communities as an act of love and growth, what Paris and Alim (2014) call an inward gaze.

Discussions around justice for Asian American communities in the US are largely centered on inclusion, representation, and “boba liberalism” (Rosen, 2021). However, more scholarship is needed to learn about the narratives and values of those experiencing multiple forms of oppression within the Asian community, notably Asian folks who are non-binary, women, disabled, queer, who hold anti-imperialist views as their lived experiences inform the leadership of intersectional movements. Teacher education can immensely benefit from the critical centering of Asian non-binary and woman organizers, artists, and community educators that honors their experiences, values and commitments to liberatory futures in order to inform a culturally sustaining and liberatory education for Asian and other Learners of Color.

Authors

• Kayla Mendoza Chui, University of Washington
  Presenting Author

• Julie Feng
  Presenting Author