Marching On. Childhood Reflections of an Asian American: Negotiating Internalized Racism and Ethnic Identity

• In Event: Centering Marginalized and Lived Experiences of Asians and Asian Americans

Abstract

With the rise in vicious hate crimes towards Asian Americans, this essay employs the lens of Critical Race Theory to reflect on personal experiences as a second-generation Pilipinx/ Filipino/ Pin@y. The author’s positionality as a recent suicide loss survivor provides an additional perspective of Helms and Cook’s Racial Identity Theory and Nadal’s Filipino American Identity Development Model. Implications include a call to dismantle the insidious practice of stigmatizing suicide, provide additional counseling support systems to immigrant parents and their children in order to address acculturation conflicts that may lead to low self-esteem and depression, and urge the active creation of counter-narratives to racist and damaging stereotypes.

Author

• Joanne Baltazar Vakil, Joyce University
  Presenting Author