As graduate students at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, we are witnessing, living through, and actively resisting against the unlawful military occupation of Minnesota by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents deployed by the Trump administration, all the while we are expected to continue navigating our programs, research and teaching obligations. In navigating this contraction as members of the Kānaka Maoli and Filipino diasporas, we propose that it is crucial, now more than ever,… Continue Reading Theories From the Diaspora: A Kānaka Maoli–Filipino Relational Praxis Toward Embodied Knowledges
What I Inherited as a Mother: Language, Schooling, and the Early Years of Korean Immigrant Parenting
Concerning I didn’t learn about institutional expectations from theory. I learned them in quiet, uneasy moments as an immigrant parent trying to understand my child’s school in the United States. In these moments, I realized there were rules no one had explained to me. In the late 2010s, my husband was suddenly transferred by his workplace in Korea and we moved to New Jersey with our two sons. The decision came so abruptly that we… Continue Reading What I Inherited as a Mother: Language, Schooling, and the Early Years of Korean Immigrant Parenting
“Remembering and getting a good education,” as my mom and my dad believed and always insisted, was the only way to imagine and dream for a better future for Black people in the United States—a country, at its “founding” core, steeped in a history of theft of land and Black bodies, brutality and violence against them and death and desecration of those lands and Black bodies. Most important to my parents was their belief that access to a better… Continue Reading Lessons Learned and Taught: Stories and Memories of Refusal and Resistance From My Parents About the Hidden Black Curriculum
Bapakwanagemagoons saplings (Pinus resinosa commonly known as red pine), are dependent upon fire for regeneration and only commonly found in areas where fire occurs on a regular basis. Where there is absence of fire for long periods of time, saplings are rare. (Photo by Nisogaabokwe Melonee Montano) Boozhoo indinawemaaganag. Minogiizhigaabo indizhinikaaz, Gaa-Miskwaabikaang indoonjibaa, Migizi indoodem. The name that I was given when I was just a few days old is Standing in the Good Sky.… Continue Reading Rekindling the Original Flames: The Anishinaabe Origin Story of Fire and a Reflective Conversation Between Mother and Son
I looked forward to the dissertation writing process as a doctoral student. I envisioned spending time in cafes, with the freedom to sit with the questions driving my research process: in the afterlives of slavery and colonization, Black trauma is “climate”; amidst a context of ongoing, layered, and intergenerational trauma, how can we heal from wounds that never close? Unfortunately, I developed my dissertation prospectus under duress. From 2020 to 2021, the initial phase of… Continue Reading Black Healing Through Spiritual Storytelling, and the Limits of Academic Practice