Voicing Names, Naming Voices: (Re)Clamation by Southeast Asian American Womxn in Higher Education

• In Event: A Critical Exploration of Womxn of Color Feminisms, Theories, and Methodologies in Higher Education

Abstract

In this paper, we as three Southeast Asian American womxn from the SEAAsterScholars Collective, describe our complicated and complex relationships and experiences with our names. In alignment with and contribution to a growing body of scholarship produced by Black, Indigenous, and womxn of color scholars, we write and share our experiences as liberatory practice (e.g., Anzaldúa, 1993, Lorde, 1984; Espino, Muñoz, & Kiyama, 2010; Martinez, 2014; Rodriguez, 2006). We write together as a political act to liberate ourselves from racial and ethnic oppression, patriarchy, and censorship, among other forms of oppression (Bird, 1998; Bernal, Burciaga, & Carmona, 2012; Martinez, 2014). We are daughters of refugees from Southeast Asia who were impacted by U.S. imperialism and intervention in the countries of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in the 1970s. The resulting period of political instability, militarization, and genocide forced our families to flee persecution and leave their homes behind. These contexts inextricably shape our relationships with our names. In this paper, we narrate our complicated and complex relationships and experiences with our names as names are important sites of identity. We all have stories that accompany our names, though these stories may not yet be known (Kiang, 1997).
Through the use of collaborative autoethnography as methodology, we engaged in intimate and vulnerable dialogue about our educational journeys. By delving into our own individual stories, our narratives collectively illuminate the multiple, intersecting forms of marginalization we must navigate related to our race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, and U.S. imperialism. Specifically, we delineate the multiple layers of (in)visibility we experience; we highlight racism, sexism, and classism toward our names, and we foreground the unseen labor we engage in to lay claim to our names. Despite the manifestation of othering, invisibility, and exoticization connected to our names, our (re)negotiations and (re)articulations of our names also serve as a source of empowerment and resistance: (1) our names connect us to our families, culture, and tradition; yet, they also serve to connect us to each other as ways of finding others similar to us, especially in spaces where we are often the “only ones,” (2) we honor our families through keeping or (re)claiming our names, (3) we assert our own autonomy, agency, and ownership over our identities as whole beings by cultivating environments where our names (and by extension, our communities) are valued and respected.
As the field of higher education and student affairs work to support Southeast Asian American students and womxn of color, we offer the following implications, lessons, and action items from our narratives: (1) learn and say students’ names, (2) practice intentionality and care for the learning and questioning of students’ names in recognition that names carry history, stories, and trauma, (3) dismantle underlying sense of entitlement to question students’ name choices, stories, and pronunciations, and (4) fostering environments that provide students with the ability to collaboratively reflect upon their experiences, document their stories, and opportunities to connect with their cultural communities.

Authors

• Varaxy Yi, California State University - Fresno

• Vanessa S. Na, University of California - San Diego

• Latana Thaviseth, Stanford University