Reconstructing the Multidimensions and Interrogating Whiteness: Collective Counter-Storytelling of Asian(American) Women's Racialized Experiences

• In Event: Exploring Asian American Perspectives of Knowing and Being

Abstract

Three Asian(American) cisgender heterosexual women employ collaborative autoethnography through the lens of Asian Critical Theory to critically examine our racialized and gendered experiences in the context of the multiple pandemics across the United States (U.S.). Through collective counter-storytelling, we problematize the dominant narrative of Asians as yellow perils, perpetual foreigners, and model minorities. Our preliminary findings include the normativity of whiteness; whiteness as property and proximity to whiteness; and, white spaces and racial identity formation. As scholar-practitioners in education, our counter-narratives not only expand the discourse on the racialization of Asian(Americans) in the U.S., but also challenge the normativity of whiteness to disrupt systemic racism and white supremacy and to build cross-racial solidarity.

Authors

• Jia Zheng, University of Maryland - College Park

• Jayna Resman, University of Maryland - College Park

• Tairan Qiu, University of Georgia - Athens