Darder (2012), in Culture and Power in the Classroom, argued that a system of educational inequality is promoted through the consistent production and reproduction of contradictions between the dominant culture and subordinate culture. More significantly, she noted that these dominant and subordinate culture contradictions create a necessity for bicultural individuals to navigate the dialectical tensions between dominant and subordinate cultures and the processes by which education perpetuates dynamics of unequal power and reproduces the dominant worldview. Hence, she urged educators to challenge prevalent power structures and re-imagine the process of schooling as a more inclusive form of pedagogy, geared towards establishing and sustaining cultural democracy in the classroom. This study responded to the call to work with a Pilipino/a student organization in creating an inclusive space in the schooling experience. The learning process for many Pilipino/a students has historically been steeped in a colonialist mentality and directed toward assimilating these students into the practices of mainstream culture in order to survive. This qualitative research intended to address the unjust issues rooted in the dominant structure of schooling and the persistence of a form of colonizing education that fails to incorporate Pilipino/a sociohistorical knowledge and practices of knowing. More specifically, it addresses issues and tensions related to the process of biculturalism, which Pilipino/a students are required to manage in order to utilize their voice and lived experiences as a basis for action. The methodology of this study was influenced by Pagtatanung-tanong—a Pilipino/a equivalent to participatory action research. In utilizing this approach, the study was formulated through the voices of Pilipino/a students at a community college engaged in community building actions toward cultural affirmation.

The purpose of this study was to explore possible relationships between the acculturation level and culturally responsive teaching practices among Korean American mathematics teachers in K-12 schools. In addition, this study aimed to see how Korean American mathematics teachers applied culturally responsive teaching in their culturally diverse classrooms. This research further examined a possible difference in applying culturally responsive teaching among Korean American mathematics teachers from urban schools and from suburban schools. A total of 30 Korean American mathematics teachers with more than 3 years of experience in teaching mathematics in K-12 schools participated in the study. This study used mixed methods: quantitative research methods were used to explore participants’ responses on three surveys, focused on their cultural experiences, teaching expertise, and culturally relevant pedagogy, and a subset of 10 participants participated in in-depth interviews for the qualitative research component. For quantitative research, the Suinn-Lew Asian Self-Identity Acculturation Scale (Suinn et al., 1992) was used for the acculturation level of participants, the Attitudes Towards Mathematics Inventory (Tapia, 1996) was used for general attitudes towards mathematics among participants. In addition, the Culturally Responsive Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale (Siwatuet et al., 2015) was used to evaluate how familiar participants were with culturally responsive teaching. Interviews were designed based on four elements suggested by Ellis (2019): supporting deep learning, valuing and engaging identity, sharing authority, and applying mathematics. Results in this study indicated that school environment was a more important factor than acculturation level when it came to culturally responsive teaching. Furthermore, all the participants still held beliefs in Korean subculture (known as “education fever”) prioritizing test-driven performance among students as an important factor in their teaching strategies regardless of acculturation level. Perceptions of most appropriate mathematical support for students’ learning varied; more acculturated participants expressed that family support for mathematics was most important for students, while less acculturated participants shared that outside classroom support including private academies was best. Participants from urban schools felt more pressure from school administration about test-driven performance of students, while those from suburban schools expressed that the major issue for teaching and learning was the language barrier between teachers and students. After moving to the United States, participants realized how they went through the acculturation process in their lives, but did not believe that it affected many of their teaching strategies. Most immigrant participants still held strong beliefs in Korean subculture in education, and even those who were born and raised in the United States knew what Korean subculture in education was, and how it affected their teaching strategies in one way or another. However, the acculturation process was believed to be contextual and differed depending on who participants frequently interacted with, and the school environment where they taught students largely determined their teaching strategies.

The intersection of Asian American identity and illicit substance use is greatly understudied in psychological literature, especially with matters of mental health and drug use being stigmatized by Asian cultural norms. However, with an increasingly alarming number of fatal drug overdoses by Asian Americans at electronic dance music (EDM) events, attention must be drawn to the needs of this unique population. The present study characterizes this community by drawing from data of 1,290 Asian American young adults who participate in the EDM scene. This study also hypothesizes the impact of acculturative stress and feelings of social belonging on MDMA usage patterns. Analysis reveals a population of largely East and Southeast Asian, 2nd generation, college-educated young adults with strikingly high usage rates of MDMA, an illicit drug linked to the EDM scene. Multiple regression models were created that could predict MDMA use through various measures related to acculturative stress and social belonging. Findings revealed the significant impact of acculturation, acculturative stress, mental health, peer relationships, and desires for social belonging on this population’s MDMA usage patterns, providing an important platform from which future research may launch much-needed additional studies of Asian American young adults and illicit drug use.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

<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)

Untold Narratives: A Refugee Experience from Laos to Richmond, California is focused on the Mien refugee experience from Laos to Richmond, California. This thesis highlights the ways Cold War politics, the Secret War, and heavy industrialization have impacted Mien communities who have been displaced from their homelands into refugee camps, and again through sponsorship into the United States. This thesis looks at political theories that discuss inequalities that exist, particularly through environmental degradation and negative health impacts that Mien refugees are experiencing in their resettlement into Richmond, California. Due to the limited scholarly articles and documented narratives that are available in regards to Mien experiences, interviews were conducted to highlight the stories and experiences of Mien refugees paired with a historical background of their journey from China, to Laos, and to Richmond. Even in the face of so much struggle and hardship, many Mien people have been resilient and been successful in building community and fighting for justice.

Interdisciplinary integration and practice through meaning making and context can contribute to the reconsideration and revolution of research by supporting narrativesand creating space for public discourse. In researching my heritage as a Korean adoptee, I found that the literature has been predominantly from adoptive parents' perspective,focusing primarily on child and adolescent development. Lacking in the literature is the adult adoptee perspective, and specifically their experiential voices. This interdisciplinary thesis has three major purposes (1) to explore how transracial transnational Korean adoption affects identity formation, (2) to illustrate how mentoring relationships can be a means to address and reframe the theme of loss as experienced by an adoptee, and (3) to use interdisciplinary inquiry as a means of expression to make meaning and illuminate adoptee identity formation. Drawing from my personal experience as an adoptee, an artist, a researcher, and as an educational mentee I integrate past research findings, Scholarly Personal Narrative (SPN: storytelling), epistolary Scholarly Personal Narrative (eSPN: epistolary storytelling), and visual artistic research through jewelry/sculpture to describe constructing my adoptee identity. Images of the jewelry/sculpture are provided, while a public art opening displayed the series of work.