Asia Diaspora Youth Participatory Action Research

• In Event: Asian Diaspora Inquiries: Decolonizing and Deimperializing Theoretical and Methodological Traditions

Abstract

Employing Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) through Asia diasporic and transnational lenses, our research challenges conceptual and methodological nationalism that functions as blind spots in understanding race, racism, and anti-racism in the United States. YPAR aims to “conduct and disseminate education research with/about youth in actionable ways” (Caraballo et al., 2017, p. 313). Meanwhile, our YPAR methodology builds upon and extends Asian American Critical Race Theory (AsianCrit) (An, 2017; Coloma, 2006; Hsieh & Nguyen, 2021; Kolano, 2016; Lee, 2009), a framework grounded in Critical Race Theory and the histories and lived experiences of Asian diasporas from intersectional, comparative, and transnational perspectives (Chang, 1993; Matsuda, 1996). AsianCrit scholars have pursued groundbreaking research in multiple fields, illuminating the exclusion of Asian diasporas in the historical narrative (An, 2017; Coloma, 2006; Hsieh & Nguyen, 2021; Kolano, 2016; Lee, 2009). However, few research has centered the multi-generational, transnational knowledge, and oral histories of Asian diaspora youth and their implications for educators and policymakers in creating socially just curriculum.

Asian Americans are embedded in transnational networks through family, cultural, financial, travel, and technological connections (Kwon, 2020). They build, expand, and leverage the knowledge grounded in these transnational networks (Kwon, 2022; Coloma, 2017). The idea of transnational funds of knowledge (Kwon et al., 2019) informs our positioning of Asian diaspora youth as researchers and knowledge producers. It foregrounds Asian Americans’ cultural and transnational epistemology that informs their process of conducting and analyzing oral histories.

We acknowledge that Asian American youth have often been homogeneously depicted as the model minority or perpetual foreigners, resulting in their exclusion from discussions on racism (S. J. Lee 2009). Asian Americans’ lived experiences and ways of knowing are untapped and silenced in schools, which center on monolingual, monocultural, and static views of language, culture, and identity (Bajaj & Bartlett, 2017; DeNicolo et al., 2017; Sun & Kwon, 2020). Our methodological approach to oral histories and digital archives as counterstories offers “an alternative epistemology that is represented through stories and can inform theories and praxis in meaningful ways” (Iftikar & Museus, 2018, p. 941; He & Yu, 2017).

By highlighting the agency of Asian diaspora youth and their strategies for defying anti-Asian racism and by situating Asian Americans in transnational contexts, our study will generate a better understanding of the complex historical and current conditions of Asian Americans as racialized and ethnized diasporic communities. Our aim is to engage in Asian Diaspora Youth Participatory Action Research using empire and AsianCrit and transnational lenses to foster social justice research on transnational children and youth, both inside and outside of schools. Recognizing Asian American youth’s untold stories and untapped community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005) and amplifying their voices and agency, we not only affirm their wealth of transnational funds of knowledge (Kwon 2019), but also offer critical perspectives to challenge the curricular violence that has historically marginalized and misrepresented Asian Americans (An, 2023), which helps create a more empowering educational environment that reflects their diverse experiences and contributions.

Authors

• Jungmin Kwon, Michigan State University

• Wenyang Sun, University of Utah

• Min Yu, Wayne State University

• Roland Sintos Coloma, Wayne State University