South Asian same-sex attracted women in the United States experience discrimination and marginalization that puts them at an increased risk for mental health issues. Research shows their rates of counseling and psychotherapy use are low due to perceptions of stigma, lack of knowledge, and concerns about culturally insensitive treatment plans. Mental health providers lack the literature needed to inform culturally sensitive treatment plans to address these concerning gaps in services, and an extensive literature review found no studies on the lived experiences of this population. Guided by feminist theory, this research study examined how discrimination, oppression, and marginalization mold women's lived experiences; this knowledge aims to serve as a means to advocate for social and political change for this population. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand the lived experiences of this population. An emergent hand coding analysis, using experiential anecdotes, of data collected from interviews of 10 participants generated 10 major themes and 25 subthemes of experiences. Themes included importance of cultural values; familial relationships; marital life plan; intersectionality; and discrimination from gender disparity, patriarchal hierarchy, and sexual modesty. The study contributes to social change initiatives by providing culturally and contextually practical information to mental health professionals, counselor educators, and educational institutions that provide services to this population.

This research explores the lived experiences of South Asians college students. This research, through a qualitative study that is rooted in the philosophy of phenomenology, explores the essence South Asians’ identity formation. Qualitative data was collected through semi-structured interviews with South Asian college students. The data analysis was under a phenomenological lens that centered the lived experiences and the essence of these experiences in the results. Seven themes emerged from this phenomenological study: negotiating bicultural identity, model minority expectations, meaningful impact of religious spaces, understandings of intra-community tensions, racialization of Islamophobia, understandings of South Asian identity and efficacy of Asian American identity. This study’s findings provide a foundation to build a more expansive framework for understanding the identity formation of South Asians.

The Khalsa is a militant sect of the Sikh religion officially created by Guru Gobind on Baisakhi Day in 1699. Sikhism, as a religion and culture, existed within the overarching structure of lndian society during the reign of the Muslim Mughal Empire. Over the course of its history, Sikhism sought to evolve and adapt to internal and external pressures, and the creation of the Khalsa was a momentous and transformational step in that evolutionary process. Using Kenneth Burke's guilt-redemption cycle as a model, this study analyses the events that created the Khalsa. The study found that historical and social pressures provided the rhetorical exigence for the creation of the Khalsa. Guru Gobind isolated and used the guilt of the Sikhs people, the guilt of being passive observers in the face of external pressures, the guilt of living in caste-organized society, the guilt of living in a bureaucratic system wherein the priests had seized power and control, and the guilt of living without external markers of the faith. These sources of guilt were brought to the forefront by Guru Gobind, and resolved through the symbolic sacrifice of five men, after which Guru Gobind created the Khalsa as an answer. Through the Khalsa, its symbols and rituals, the Sikhs were provided with a way to escape the flaws and guilt of the old order. The creation of the Khalsa was an important milestone in the evolution of the Sikh culture and religion. Through this study, the processes and methods of this identity transformation were isolated. Guru Gobind activated social and collective levels of identity through the medium of performance in order to transform his audience of Sikhs into the Khalsa.

The Chinese community in Malaya, Singapore, and British Borneo, as in all of Southeast Asia, is in the early stages of a radical change. This ethnic group, which already holds virtual control of the economy of these three regions, is now finding it necessary to also reach out for political representation, or even political control, in order to preserve its place in local society. Such participation in local affairs constitutes a great change for a group which has always maintained an orientation toward China, socially and politically, wherever its individuals might happen to live. The process of change is bound to be a painful one, as any break away from jealously held traditional values must be. There is, however, no real alternative; the choice must be between this change and an even more radically changed China. ... Malaya, Singapore, and British Borneo were chosen as the locale of this study for two main reasons. First, the similarities of the three are marked. They have made· up the major British colonial area of Southeast Asia, and the original population of the region was basically Malay. Second, the concentration of Chinese. population there is greater than in any other area outside China. Malaya with nearly half its population Chinese; Singapore, with a population which is four-fifths Chinese; and British Borneo, with almost one third of its people Chinese, are certainly in the position of having their future decided by the direction taken in the development of their Chinese community. The importance of the Chinese is enhanced by their relatively better educational and economic standing. Thus, it can be seen that a knowledge of the Chinese community in Malaya, Singapore and British Borneo, is extremely important in developing an understanding of the probably future development of these countries. Moreover, such knowledge is even more important in gaining foresight of the future of the Chinese in all of Southeast Asia.

<p>This dissertation investigates the traumatic legacies of colonialism, imperialism and authoritarianism in Southeast Asia, the diasporic conditions of Southeast Asian refugees in North America after 1975, and the relationship among literature, ethics, and reconciliation more broadly. Focusing primarily on contemporary novels that intervene in the cultural memory of the Cambodian genocide, the War in Viet Nam, and the World War II Japanese Occupation of Malaysia, my dissertation conceptualizes an intimate politics of reconciliation that routes the study of justice foremost through questions of affect, epistemology and ethics. An intimate politics of reconciliation, I argue, encapsulates a constellation of intimate memorial acts—ritual, testimony, collaboration, gifting, and narrative reconstruction—that operate within and against macro-political and juridical modalities of justice. My research highlights productive scenes of convergence between discourses of post-genocide reconciliation and alternative spiritual cosmologies, between refugee collaborative writing and theories of gifting, and between theories of forgetting and social and psychic reparation. In arguing that Southeast Asian diasporic genealogies paradoxically foreground the necessity of both remembering and forgetting in the collective work of reconciliation, this dissertation engages with and challenges two key theoretical paradigms in Asian American Studies—a politics of social justice premised upon a discourse of “subjectlessness” and a psychoanalytic paradigm of productive melancholia theory.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The threat of global climate change increasingly influences the actions of human society. As world leaders have negotiated adaptation strategies over the past couple of decades, a certain discourse has emerged that privileges Western conceptions of environmental degradation. I argue that this framing of climate change inhibits the successful implementation of adaptation strategies. This thesis focuses on a case study of the Maldives, an island nation deemed one of the most vulnerable locations to the impacts of rising sea levels. I apply a postcolonial theoretical framework to examine how differing knowledge systems can both complement and contradict one another. By analyzing government-enforced relocation policies in the Maldives, I find that points of contradiction between Western and indigenous environmental epistemologies can create opportunities to bridge the gap between isolated viewpoints and serve as moments to resist the dominant climate change discourse.

Parental involvement plays an essential role in the United States (U.S.) educational system. However, parental involvement poses many challenges for Hmong parents in American schools. Many assumptions are made on the parts of teachers, staff, and Hmong parents about parents' roles pertaining to their involvement in their children's education. Hmong parents struggle to reconcile beliefs, attitudes, and values that they bring with them from Laos with the expectations found in the U.S. due to their unfamiliarity with the U.S. educational system. This study employed the used a qualitative, descriptive case study approach to examine the perceptions of Hmong parents involvement at a K-6 Hmong American charter school in Northern California. The primary data collection method used in this study was interviews with four school-community stakeholder groups. The purposeful-selected interview participants included two administrators, four teachers, six parents, and four students. The interviews were dialogically coded and nine themes were developed related to parental involvement. These nine themes were: communication with parents, committee involvement, flexibility of staff, enrichment programs non-traditional school schedule, importance of field trips, cultural events and presence of other cultures, recommend school to others, and positive behavioral reinforcement. The study concludes with a presentation of the implications of the nine themes on the design of parent involvement models and recommendations are offered related to policies and connected strategies for how to design culturally relevant supports for parent involvement in education.

This research uses computational grounded theory to explore the human capital formation and stay/return migration experiences of well-educated Mong adults living in various rural/semi-rural Northern California localities within Butte, Yuba, and Sutter Counties. Rural vitality is dependent on the return of these well-educated rural-raised adults. Out-migration of rurality’s best and brightest contributes towards a brain drain and the hallowing out of rurality’s human capital. Findings of this research is conveyed using two research articles examining two different points on the continuum of rural vitality. The first article examines 19 Mong adults’ educational experiences within their rural communities and college education. The second article examines the experiences and factors for the same Mong adults to stay or return. The seven emerging themes describe Mong students’ social capital within their communities towards educational attainment and place affinity.