To See and Be Seen, To Listen and Be Heard

• In Event: Centralizing Asian and Asian American Youth in AsianCrit

Abstract

Objectives
Humanizing research centering relationality and love in education can be a promising way to remedy and repair harm done to marginalized students. Recognizing experience and relationship as central to a project of educational equity grounded in mutual liberation, humanization, and loving solidarity resists definitions of educational equity based solely on white, colonial methods of measurement. This autoethnographic counterstory explores educational equity through the lens of AsianCrit, drawing from the experiences of an Asian American educator MotherScholar and her son through his K-12 education. The paper explores themes of access, navigation, invisibility, and (demands for) conformity, reconsidering the costs of white, colonial notions of success, and proposing that equity be grounded in humanization that honors all of who students, families and educators bring to the learning process.

Theoretical Framework
This paper draws from the AsianCrit (Iftikar & Museus, 2018) tenets of Asianization; strategic (anti)essentialism; and story, theory, and praxis. Asianization and strategic (anti)essentialism (Author, 2021; Iftikar & Museus, 2018) focus on the specific racialized experiences of Asian Americans and stereotypical construction of “Asian-ness” using white colonial logics that render many Asian Americans invisible, essentializing their collective identities. Strategic (anti)essentialism and story, theory, and praxis (Author, 2021; Iftikar & Museus, 2018), however, also offer ways for Asian Americans to resist narratives placed upon them by authoring counterstories that center their lived experiences and (re)define racial categories to influence theory, praxis, and existing power structures.

Methods
The paper is an autoethnographic (Bochner & Ellis, 2016) counterstory (Atwood & López, 2014; Solórzano & Yosso, 2002), exploring ideas of educational equity through experiences of an educator MotherScholar and her son, a recent graduate from a “highly ranked” academic-magnet public high school. Critical incidents requiring advocacy throughout the son’s K-12 schooling were identified, described and analyzed using the AsianCrit theoretical framework, drawing from relational, humanizing knowledge and lenses of identities as a mother, critical educator, teacher educator, and researcher.

Results
As early as kindergarten, the schooling system became something to be navigated, as the son never quite fit in, but also excelled academically. Although initially well-meaning educators tried to support through social interventions, eventually the default response became invisibility and expectations of performance and conformity consistent with the Model Minority stereotype (Lee, 2015) without affirmation of the son’s individuality, innovation, and desire to learn. Efforts at self-advocacy and parental advocacy were rebuffed and both mother and son felt unseen and unheard within multiple schooling environments.

Significance
According to white, colonial logics, the son’s journey is a success. He excelled academically and will enter a prestigious university in the fall. Yet, this paper delves into the hidden cost of these “successes” and conceptualizes an alternate, humanizing approach towards education for Asian American students that engages and affirms their individuality, families, and communities. To remedy and repair the harm done to many Asian American studies, we must expand notions of educational equity to embrace the full humanity of students in promoting their overall success and well-being.

Author

• Betina Hsieh, University of Washington