Towards (Re)Loving Our Own Communities: Cambodian and Lao American Girls Grappling with Internalized Racism

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 8:00 a.m. Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: Refusing Fragmentation: Constructing Belonging With/in Black and Immigrant Communities (Table 12)

Abstract

This paper draws on interviews with Cambodian and Lao American girls to explore the ways in which hegemonic racial narrative inform how they think about family relations, gendered ethnic identities, and intimate relationships. It argues that denigrating perspectives must be examined through the lens of internalized racism to transform ethnic and cultural self-contempt into (re)loving their communities and themselves.

Author

• Diana Chandara, University of Minnesota