Threats to Identities

• In Event: Educators Combating Midwestern "Slow-Drip Racism": Spirit Healing Narratives of Women of Color in Academia

Abstract

Starting a new life as a school psychology graduate student and immigrant in the Midwest involved layers of challenges in my personal life and professional training. Being alone as an alien in classes and training sites, I strived to look competent and normal by suppressing my different thoughts and perspectives. As a community member, I was busy conforming myself to the group norms so that I did not stand out: I changed what to wear, what to eat, and what to talk about. In retrospect, hiding my true emotions with disguised smiles, I thought the old “me” did not appear helpful for the rest of my career and personal life in a new world.

Being in a marginalized group, I had to keep questioning my competence and knowledge even having had years of professional experiences in the field. On my first day of practicum, I was asked to collect frequency data on one student’s disruptive behavior. I quickly searched for a dictionary and looked up “disruptive,” because there is no clear corresponding term to describe a disruptive student in Korean. In the end, I stole a glance at my supervisor’s sheet and saw a big difference in the total behaviors she had observed. I quickly hid my table and instead agreed with her findings. I assumed the differences were due to my own lack of experience or knowledge. It took quite a while until I began to understand that the differences in my products and thoughts are an extension of my cultural background.

A colleague of mine once shared that her child did not eat much at school, while binge-eating after school. Her daughter was ashamed about bringing her lunch box (with rice in it, not sandwiches) to school. The child did not want to invite her friends to her home because she did not want to show the different ways of her family life from peers. This story of changing ourselves resonated with me as truth as it was my life too, even in higher education. While eating my lunch, a White-male stopped by my office. I still vividly remember his verbal and facial reaction to my lunch box. Actually, I think the smells of goat cheese seem stronger than fried kimchi rice, but my feeling of shame persisted for a few days and weeks, and ended up changing my choices of food. I strived to belong to the groups and seemed to fit in the community, but I had never been truly myself.

Textbooks claim that my unique background is my personal and professional strength, but actually accepting it as a truth did not happen because of lack of empathy and people of color who had the same experience. As a clinician and an educator, the population receiving educational and clinical services are predominantly White. My unique expertise in certain areas such as meeting specific needs that immigrant families or multilingual learners may have, did not seem necessary in the community that has been built by native Midwesterners.

Author

• Sungeun Kang, The University of Iowa