September 16, 2025 • 53 mins
On this episode of The Bánh Mì Chronicles Podcast, I invited guest Tony DelaRosa to share his current work and knowledge about what is happening with DEI in the K-12 public education and in higher learning at both the local and national level in the US. As DEI is getting dismantled by the federal government, and in certain states and local governments, Tony sheds some light on what DEI practitioners are doing to counter the anti-DEI movement, and how DEI is being practiced and taught in different educational spaces. Tony brings up the significance of amplifying awareness of Asian American education in his work, and how it is essential to creating meaningful solidarity with other communities and dismantling white supremacy and colonization.
Happy listening everybody!
Bio:
Tony DelaRosa is a PhD student in the UW-Madison Educational Leadership & Policy Analysis program, where he studies the impact of coalitions, institutions, and race-based policies on leadership practices. He is the author of the award-winning book "Teaching the Invisible Race: Embodying a Pro-Asian American Lens in Schools," published by Jossey-Bass. His work has been featured on CNN, NPR, Harvard Ed Magazine, and NBC. Learn more on social media @TonyRosaSpeaks or by visiting TonyRosaSpeaks.com
To follow Tony:
Instagram: tonyrosaspeaks
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Hey everyone, this is Randy Kim from the Bundy Chronicles
podcast and I have been very excited to bring on this guest
for quite some time. And, and this is the person I've
been watching vicariously over the past few years because we
have a number of mutual friends who have been involved in the
activism work, specifically in the Asian American community and
(00:25):
anti racism and racial solidarity work.
And so Tony de La Rosa is a father, He's a husband.
He's an award-winning Filipino American author, spoken word
poet, educator, coach and researcher.
Tony holds a background and Asian Studies at the University
of Cincinnati, a Master's with afocus on art education and
(00:48):
nonprofit management from Harvard University, and is
currently pursuing his PhD in Education Leadership and Policy
Analysis at the University of Wisconsin Madison.
So I will also say that Tony recently released his book
Teaching the Invisible Race, which is critically claimed.
(01:09):
It has definitely been in the hands of like many educators
and, and, and I want to bring Tony on because he brings a lot
of light into the DEI anti racism work, which has clearly
been a hot button issue for the past few years.
And first of all, welcome Tony. I really appreciate you being
(01:30):
here. And how are you holding up these
days in the year of 2025 but only a mere few months?
Left Oh my goodness, thanks for having me.
I'm so it's an honor to be on this podcast the listening to it
and I'm just like excited to bring you know, the cage bald
lens to this to this space. How am I holding you up?
(01:54):
I mean, you know, as a parent of22 these kiddos, it's just been
it's been a joy to watch. It's been also very just
stressful and heavy to know simultaneously that, you know, I
always say teach the word and teach the world, which I've
learned as a critical educator. And you know, right now what's
(02:18):
happening in Casa, right? What's happening in Sudan,
Congo, Philippines, like all this, like being able to being
able to see everything, especially on social media to
reflect on how I'm raising my child to build a better world
for kids, you know, for themselves, not only for
themselves, but the community. And knowing that other kids are
(02:39):
not getting the opportunity is so critical for me right now.
Just being able to raise them through an anti racist lens,
right? And also not to, not to also be
too heavy on them to balance it all everyday.
Because yeah, parenting is at bouncing as you tell.
I just jumped into the my parentidentity because that is like
everything I had like lack of sleep the last few days because
(03:02):
kiddos are teething, you know, which is a part of normal
development. My, my baby Malaya, well, she's
a toddler now, is teething. And then my son, he has a little
fever right now going in and outof it.
So there's just a lot at home, but I'm just happy because it is
warm outside. I'm in Madison, WI, which is
generally more progressive meaning like it is, I can, I can
(03:27):
be myself. I'm not worried about I can be
myself on, on apologetically. You know, there's a lot of white
people here, right? But generally Midwest niceness
is kind of the ethos here. So I, it's kind of like I enter
the world here and I asked for, I don't ask for permission.
(03:48):
I asked for I guess like grace later on after I do the thing
that I need to get done right, whether it's an organizing act
or an anti racist, anti racist teaching or something like that,
Our presentation, I always ask for grace later even if people
are not like ready for what I have to say.
So anyways, I'm generally feeling good.
(04:09):
Thank you for asking. Yeah, I think it's very
interesting that you point up your role as a father too, and
actually as a person who's not aparent.
I'm always very curious to see what fellow parents are
navigating with their kids, whatthey are seeing, because how we
grew up is exponentially very different.
(04:31):
I mean, in terms of access to technology.
There was a time when technologywas not in our faces 24/7 as it
is now. So when you are talking to your
kids or actually what you're seeing from the public school
lens, what are you actually seeing with how, how kids are
(04:51):
consuming current events? And you know, whether it's like
on through social media or through any kind of any, any
kind of digital format. I'm I'm very curious to know how
they are absorbing that and how do you as a parent navigate
through that? Yes, I can answer from a lens of
(05:13):
parents. I can answer from a lens of what
I'm seeing in education because I was a consultant and a coach.
So from a parent I know, you know, my my son is going to just
transfer daycare to pre-K right.And I had like written a poem
recently about kind of his like a moment when we are like
(05:36):
reading a book, you know, talking about Ariel Little
Mermaid, because Little Mermaid,he's gender expansive.
So he was saying I want to be a mermaid.
I want to be like Ariel and thenbut then he would say I'm not
like not like the black Ariel. And I'm like, what do you mean?
And then like they'll go spiralslike, you know, my heart rate
(05:57):
kind of just my cortisol goes upand like what?
What do you mean? Not the black Ariel.
You know, I have all these pro black books.
You know, I'm an anti racist educator.
So you wouldn't think naturally that would filter down to my son
and my kids. But notions of anti blackness is
so insidious and so tricky to spot and where they are.
(06:19):
And I'm like, so that's anti blacks, but I don't teach him
that. So where's it coming from?
So from his school, where's it coming from?
It's not yet. So other kids are saying in his
classroom, cool around like I don't like this teacher's skin
because of XY and Z, but I like this other person's skin, you
know, so they're talking about skin tones and, and what I came
down to it. When it came down to it, I, I
(06:40):
realized that the anti blacknessis so insidious and pro
whiteness for white supremacy isso just like built in the system
and so explicit that we have to try so hard to on to challenge
those systems every day in orderfor them not to actually
naturally get raised into an anti black mindset, right.
(07:01):
So that's like from the children's perspective.
And I haven't even barely talkedto him about Palestine.
I am talking about Palestine, you know, like how to usher that
he thinks it's very tragic and sad.
I can tell that he has a lot of empathy in his head.
He whenever I talked about like displacement, you know, I'm also
talking I'm learning about Meng refugee status, right?
And that's part of my dissertation studies.
(07:24):
So I have to read a lot of fugitive work from different
scholars, like right and Chindu,her.
And I'm like, yeah, why? He's like, why don't they not
have a home, you know? And like trying to describe
statelessness to him is really difficult.
There's barely any books on that, you know what I mean?
And resources. What he's getting from school is
(07:46):
pretty much like the technical skills of getting into a get
into K according to kindergarten, right?
He's not getting democratic, critically democratic skills or
critically literate skills to navigate the world critically,
right? So I'm providing that.
And then when I go into the K12 system, because I was a former
instructional coach and Miami-Dade, like I went all the
(08:07):
way up to way all the way down to Homestead, which is like very
far, like a lot of Central American and Mexican American
population, farmland area, and then all the way up to North
Miami and Central Miami. So it's such a huge drive and
huge distant demographic and from 1 lens to the next one, one
(08:27):
space to the next. What is true is that people are
struggling to understand they're, I mean, I already know
since I'm looking at curriculum from different teachers, they're
not getting ethnic studies. No one's really teaching ethnic
studies unless you are pro blackor pro ethnic studies and took
that in undergrad. You know, like we're really like
(08:48):
in a humanities course. You're not teaching that into
your K12 curriculum. You're not altering it because
what's what you're battling against is the speed of time.
And, and it's really difficult to like take time out of your
schedule, your busy schedule, your 9:00 to 5:00 as a teacher
to change the curriculum and plan because lesson planning
(09:08):
takes a long time. And then calling parents, right?
And then making sure that kids get to school, you know, making
sure if they're not kids are notthere, checking in on them and
then grading, right? So it's the system's really
against them. And what I basically what I'm
saying. So I'm always looking for
resources that kind of are able to supplement educators have the
(09:33):
easiest lift for them to bring critical pedagogy and knowledge
into their work, right? I always try to find that for
people online, whether it's on like social media or from a
colleague. I'm at UW Madison, so it's a
great school for curriculum and instruction.
It's like I think #1 ranked for that.
And then for my son, I'm just telling myself everyday I need
(09:56):
to for at least like the the micro issue of my anti blackness
and extreme pro whiteness in which he's seeing like his at
one point he like, you know, notthis, not to say this is a
trivial thing. Like he was like in frozen,
right, Frozen and the Princess in frozen is bond, you know,
like, and then he likes Rapunzel, you know, and Ariel
(10:18):
and I'm like all these white princesses, right, which is not
a bad thing because princesses are awesome.
You know, like, I love that about that.
As a male, he wants to expand his gender identity and embody
what a female or let's not conflate with women, like
practice gender, right, practicegender in an inexpensive way.
But to know that being surrounded by just feminist
(10:43):
theory is not enough and having to have to supplement with
critical race theory, right, If you will, to actually bring it
down to the level of pre-K at the pre-K level.
And knowing that I, if I don't do that, you would actually be
socialized to love whiteness. That's something that I'm always
(11:04):
critical of, right? So from from a parent lens and
from a school lens, we have a lot of work to do.
Yeah, I think you bring up a good point.
Like we are racing against time,especially for those in the DEI
work. And it's no coincidence like in
the 2024 election that the the young Gen.
Z voters have started to make that shift towards the Trumpism.
(11:27):
And also and also it's no coincidence that the Republicans
have made this a campaign to endDEI.
So with that said, I wonder whatdoes the, what have you observed
from the Trump administration that has severely impacted DI
(11:48):
work and education across the US?
And I mean, I don't know where to begin with that.
I know that this is a very loaded question.
Again, Yeah, yeah, that's a veryloaded question.
It's like where do I begin? Where do I start?
I I think just like if you're asking me most rest most recent,
because this has been ongoing, right?
(12:09):
Like even before Trump got elected, there was Republicans,
conservatives and Democrats, right, who were promoting very
harmful content, right, to preserve whiteness, right,
because whiteness is, is a widespread across.
(12:30):
It's, it's, it is agnostic in the sense that whiteness is
everywhere, right? Whiteness is on both sides.
If we use a colloquial politicalterm.
But I'll say during Trump, what got really elevated is the
explicit, the very explicit, nonhidden versions, like saying the
the quiet thing loud, right? That the permissions I write in
(12:51):
my book like there's permissionsbeing given to now act on your
ideology of racism. Right?
Before there wasn't so much permission to act on it, but
now, like Part 2 of Trump, he's like explicitly like, oh, well,
no accountability for me. Like I could do whatever I want.
I can get convicted and I could,I can swap my, my, my wand and
(13:15):
anything could happen, right? And I can use money to protect
me. Like that's kind of what we're
dealing with in terms of the, the, the bottom up.
And then on a tangible moment, Prager University, right, which
is like a very conservative education think tank
organization that kind of arose and now is scaling across the US
(13:37):
to promote conservative ideals, right?
To, you know, 1 to 1 lens. I saw something on social media
that was teaching a lesson on slavery and how it wasn't that
bad, right? Wow, you know what I'm saying?
Like to even use that phrase to the simplest phrase, slavery
wasn't that bad or slavery was normal.
(13:58):
Normalizing slavery as a normal thing undos undoes so much work
that a lot of my ancestors worked on a lot of people I look
up to. Right?
Womanist, queer feminist scholars have been working
against right to this build thislanguage systems and ideologies
(14:19):
to combat and preserve one theirhumanity and combat a system
that has been minoritizing them and harming them, right?
So Prager University is an org, right?
So they're producing curriculum textbooks, right?
It's wants to be a university, right?
It wants to promote its resources through P through 20,
(14:41):
right? Not just for the K12 scene, but
through higher Ed right. And I've seen recently more,
more conservative political pundits saying like we need 50%
of conservatives, conservative staff and faculty off these
higher education higher Ed institutions.
(15:04):
Like for me, like I switched in 2022 to from a practitioner into
the higher Ed track because I wanted to archive and theorize
critical Philippinex, critical Asian American studies work with
education because that just thatwasn't happening enough, right?
I wrote my book Teaching the Invisible Race because I knew
(15:24):
that in 2020 it was an intervention to the lack of
Asian American representation, history and perspectives in our
curricula, right? You look at Sony and ANS and
Marion Rodriguez's research, they look at standards, social
study standards across curriculaand literally the only standards
(15:44):
that come up are East Asian narratives, right?
Japanese, Chinese policies, right?
Sprinkle a little Filipino, sprinkle a little Vietnamese,
sprinkle a little Korean, and everyone else goes aggregately
Asian, right? Which is harmful because if you
agree all of us, then you, we don't target a lot of us, right?
You target mostly East Asian folks.
(16:05):
And then mostly what happens is like this model minority
narrative of Asian Americans, right?
As opposed to like the resistance capital or resistance
narratives that I'm looking for and I'm looking to teach my
kids, right? So right now we got Prager you
was that I said we have the attack on higher education
(16:25):
institutions. We have the attack on ethnic
studies. You know, out of California,
there's a bill that's trying to censor and like actually punish
anyone who tries to teach about Palestine, right.
Wow. You know, that's, that's backed
by Zionist propaganda and Zionist policies, right?
And Zionist policies are backed by both Democrats and
(16:46):
Republicans is what's why I'm saying that's why I'm saying
like it. It's not just a conservative
thing, right? So it's like, where do we start,
right? Where do we, where do we?
It's like which we can pick a plethora of issues right now.
What I'm trying to focus on is ethnic studies, right?
Ethnic studies in the Midwest, right?
(17:07):
What I'm trying to do is take local control, local because I
don't have so much time and energy as much as a parent and
as his father, like I don't knowhow much time, right.
So I got to be very strategic about always spend my time.
And I was talking to an organizer and poet and educator,
Teresa Siagatono. And she's out of Oakland.
(17:28):
And you know, there's this, there's this romanticism she
would say about like, oh, everyone needs to move and
there's going to be an exodus and move to the these bastions
of, of Democratic or liberal thought like in the Oakland Bay
Area or go back to New York and leave.
I'm like, no, no, no. She was like, you need to stay
in a stronghold. If you feel strong and you have
a connection and organizing connection, a voice in the
(17:51):
Midwest, stay there. She was like, she's like, you
stay there. You built that you, that's where
your voice is. I don't have power that like you
do in the Midwest. And I'm like, you're absolutely
correct. If I could become a professor
that helps challenge the systemsand promote equity, deep
diversity and inclusion. But generally, mostly what I
really mean is ethnic studies atall lands at all levels.
(18:12):
If I could do that in the Midwest, I would love to stay
here. You know what I mean?
But knowing that my job, also the job market for higher
education is very slim these days because there's a tack on
the entire market. I'm going to, I'm going to take
my energy wherever I can, right?But right now for now I'm doing
it locally. Yeah, Thank you for really, you
(18:32):
know, taking us through this webof of uncertainty that's going
on that a lot of people are not even aware of because people
think like the is just a simple,you know, let's talk about
diversity. I mean, this is complex and I
think that what you really shareis very deep into like of why
this history needs to be told and how it's being told and, and
(18:55):
also trying to navigate the institutions in the system that
are in place that actually benefited from not having DEI.
And so it's like it's a it's basically trying to play which
game is going to work. And I'm also like very curious
about how other school districtsand institutions and Democrat
(19:16):
run cities and states are looking to counter the anti DEI
work. So I'm looking for templates of
like 6 sex success templates of like K12 districts right?
To see like are there people whoare like just on the offensive
all right? Like why are we always defending
(19:36):
ourselves when we can? I would love to be with
leadership templates of who's disrupted in this work, right?
And honestly, I have a limited scope because I don't study
juristic level work, but it's helpful for me to as a
consultant and speaker because Igenerally partner with those
districts, right? As a consultant, I'm like,
that's how I survive as a business owner, as a small
business owner, I'm like, well, I need to go to states that have
(20:00):
very democratic ideas, very progressive ideas that still do
DEI work, right? So Illinois is like somewhere I
wanted to partner because especially.
They are the 1st place that passed like Asian American
education teachable policy, right, with the TEACH Act.
But even with that, you know, you know, they're still being
attached by the national, the federal government, right?
(20:20):
Which they're still winning in many ways at the national level.
But at the local level, I, I, I can't even tell you, I haven't
done any research on it, like how implementation is happening.
Is it impacted? I would say my business partners
in New York though, I, I run a program called the Asian
American Teaching Empowerment Networking Initiative.
It's like the, it like basicallysupports and recruits Asian
(20:42):
American male teachers in New York City public schools.
Our budget is not impacted by any of this.
And I asked why they just were committed for a long period, for
a long time. So and anal, it's New York's
pretty progressive. So I mean, New York City, it's
pretty progressive. So I was like, thankfully this
(21:04):
is awesome. So some people that some places
are not impacted, which is cool to know.
Some budgets from the micro level, some arms of the
districts are not impacted, maybe some others are, you know
what I mean? But this nonprofit, NYC Menteech
was not impacted in that way, right?
Hopefully this doesn't out them and they become a target via me
talking about them on this podcast 'cause I love the work
that they do. But I would say that in terms of
(21:28):
broadly what people are doing, they're changing their office
language name, right? Like equity and inclusion
becomes the well-being and community office, right?
They either change it into well-being spaces, which I've
seen happen. Like I have a lot of friends who
are diversity, equity, inclusionofficers.
They don't have that name now astheir role.
(21:50):
They're the chief well-being officer or what other districts
are doing are just doubling down, right?
Doubling down on the equity work.
So I, I, I think, let me try to think, I'm trying to think of
like a good template because I haven't heard much right now,
because even California, many districts now are being attacked
right now. And you would think that it's a
(22:10):
bastion in California. And I haven't really seen a
district not get attacked, right.
Like even San Francisco, in particular, Unified School
District with its transition in superintendency, like recently I
was called in to speak, like notspeak, but like to mobilize
resources. And you know, I use my, my, my
Instagram to amplify issues happening in the community
(22:32):
turning to ethnic studies. And a lot of the leaders were
asking me to pressure the pressure by educating people and
putting pressure on this new Superintendent who happened to
be Asian, right, to preserve ethnic studies, because people
are trying to like, Zionist and conservatives were trying to
like, limit the amount of ethnicstudies that was going to be
(22:54):
implemented in the school district.
Right Now it's like implemented,right?
And it's like the heartland for ethnic studies in K12 and higher
education, right? That's where I was born in San
Francisco. So I'm like, what?
So I can't even tell you. I can't even say like, what's
that? What's their real strategy right
now? I know people are renaming and
rebranding, right? They're shifting resources,
right? I know that at the higher level
(23:17):
they are doing layoffs, right? And they are redistributing
resources and instead of having a central office making sure
their DEI values are just integrated, right.
And I think that's an important thing like equity of resource
allocation. If that's the, if that's a, if
that's a strategy that you want to preserve, then you just do
(23:38):
the thing. You don't have to name it equity
resource allocation. You just resource, you just have
different groups that that had not the level of resources that
they needed in the past, like the Black Student Union, for
example, get the resources they need to continue their
programming. You know what I mean?
Like that's just one example. So people, do I have like the
(24:02):
strategy? Do I have the solution, the
panacea, the panacea to solve every district?
No, because every district's different.
Everyone's, everyone. Every time I go into a meeting,
at least in my PhD program, a hall group meeting, the leaders
are saying they start off the meeting with we don't know what
(24:24):
we're doing. We're trying our best to keep
you updated. We're talking to as many equity
Ford people as possible to preserve what we're doing right
now in the midst of attacks. And it's really difficult.
So we appreciate your grace and it's the same time.
We're not going to let you down,which I love.
(24:44):
I love that they they put a stake in the ground and say like
we're going to try our best to not let, whether it's to like
high, like re change their name or whatever, they're going to
try to keep us afloat because they know that we need to get
our work done out there, right? They know that we deserve to
continue producing equity work. So a lot of a lot of
(25:04):
descriptions but not a lot of specific answers for you.
But it's a non specific in a very abstract time that makes
sense. Yeah, to also like make a like a
slight pivot here, like as an 8,as a queer Asian American,
specifically Vietnamese and Cambodian, like I grew up in a
predominantly white community and which is very common for a
(25:27):
lot of folks that Asian folks that did not live in the coastal
cities that live in the Midwest and the South.
And like, like for me, I did notknow who Doctor Honani K Trask
Gray, Gracie Boggs, Fred Karamatsu or even Lapu Lapu
until like I was in my 30s. And I'm for context, I'm 42.
(25:50):
And so like I had gone K to 12 without knowing any of my Asian
American history. And if there was, it was
basically like the Japanese in World War 2 and the Vietnam War.
So we were seen as the villains in our story and nothing about
the humanity of them. And I see how dangerous this is
(26:12):
because, you know, to deal with like, white students that
absolutely took that narrative and ran with it, which allowed
them to be pretty cruel. I think this is what's really
important is that, you know, when we don't talk about the
Chinese Exclusion Act or what happened to Vincent Chen or the
European colonization that has done to destroy generations of
(26:35):
people in Asia, Africa and LatinAmerica.
I think like like what do you see as the potential North star
in all of this? I think, I think like I see the
power of knowing this because the reason why I knew about
these historical figures and these events is because of
(26:56):
movement folks, people in the activist movement and in the
digital community and who have been doing the groundwork.
And that's the only way I've been able to know about it.
So that also tells me that that my fellow peers who are not as
informed, unfortunately do not know that.
(27:18):
And there are consequences to not knowing our history and what
that leads to, and what unconscious biases can do.
Yeah. What is our North Star?
And you're asking like, what is our North Star with like with
now people trying to, you know, having these resources more
readily available basically is that what you're asking like?
(27:40):
Yes, yeah, let's yeah, let's yeah.
Let's go for. Let's go with that part, yeah.
Yeah, I, I think like, you know,since I study like the Asian
American K12 movement right now,which is the a response to the
rise of Stop Asian hate, right? It's like the movement has been
kind of talked about post I say I call it my dissertation post
(28:01):
Stop Asian Hate when I always put like quote, UN quote Marx,
because, you know, stop Asian hate is the hate analysis unit
of analysis. That is like an interpersonal
like unit, right? If you just look at hate, then
you're looking you're you're looking too narrowly at the
issue, right, at the phenomenon,right, Because like you say, the
(28:22):
Chinese Exclusion Act, right, Naturalization Act is 17
nineties, right? Like freaking Japanese
incarceration, like all there's so much policy that underpins
and that has impacted Asian diasporic peoples in America
before 2020, right? So like, that's something I just
(28:47):
want to know and say as we critique the stop Asian hate.
But the stop Asian phenomena, I would say put it, put Asian
American narratives on the map per SE in the media, right, Made
it accessible to a lot more people for once.
People lay people, let's say laypeople.
Why peers are asking like when Igo in a room and I ask them, do
you have you heard about stoppage and hate?
(29:09):
And I did actually hands up, youknow, like when I do my talks in
my book, that's one of the firstquestions I ask people.
I'm like, have you ever heard about the stoppage and hate
movement? And a lot of people are like,
yes, and I'm like, wow, this is a this is that's data for me.
That's like a metric And like that tells me that this
phenomenon, communities who fought, right, to get this stuff
(29:29):
in the media to get our histories out there to say that
they've been doing this for the last 20 plus years are getting
their time to shine, right? And then there's other people.
Well, I'm going to talk about this time to shine part.
And then there's people weaponizing it.
OK, let's talk about the people.Let's like put some love on
communities, right first, because I don't want to focus on
the negative all the time and some love on the communities
like coalition for children's families, like CICF and and New
(29:52):
York, right? Vanessa Lium, I think she's
Vietnamese American. I, I don't want to don't quote
me on that, but like she and herorganization have been fighting
for Asian American education curricular policy for like 20
plus years in New York City, right?
And now they're getting spotlighted, which is great.
You know, I'm glad they are, butthey should have way back,
right? I would say that like a recent
(30:17):
complex organization, I would say is like the Asian American
Foundation, Taff, right, who hasZionist like underpinned.
I don't want to stay too long onthis organization because
there's so much more out there. But Taff, for example, on the
Asian American Foundation, I waslike they're voted, I was voted
their community trailblazer where they featured me on Hulu,
like on a Hulu episode. The complexity here is that I I
(30:39):
learned post after that video was filmed of me that their,
their board chair was John Greenblatt, who's like the the
leader of the Zionist org anti defamation League, right ADL,
which is not it's very anti Palestinian and anti I would say
anti Asian American in that casescenario.
(31:00):
Anyways, I do I do want to shinelight to the education arm
because they are funding education initiatives for Asian
American studies in K12 and in IRN.
So meanwhile ethnic studies and a lot of things are being
attacked. They are funding a lot of the
work to be done for Asian American to promote, to amplify,
to, to bolster. So I've also received, I would
(31:22):
ask like, OK, I'll do a talk at UConn, UU, Connecticut, right?
And the professor that who hiredme said, oh, your money came
from the money that I'm paying. You came from Taf.
I'm like, oh, OK, this is interesting.
I will take it. And just I'm glad to keep that
knowledge going because I understand that even when in
(31:43):
that group at large, while I don't support it at large,
there's some dope education workbeing had and research being
promoted, right? And then let's move to Asian
American advancing justice, right?
They are an org that I fully support, right?
They are grass roots organizers,right?
(32:05):
They advocate for policy, they advocate a policy change.
They advocate for civic engagement, they advocate for
education proliferation. So they are getting bolstered,
right? People are shining the light to
them as experts as they should be to, you know, they help with
the teach Act in Illinois to getthat off the ground, right?
So that's cool to know that they're becoming a household
(32:27):
name in the Asian American K12 movement, right?
They can go to them the right people for resources, but they
can also the, the, the, the drawback is that people see any
phenomenon, they see a phenomenon, they capitalize on
it. So other organizations like
Taft, for example, will capitalize on it and they say
like, Hey, come to us, we're theK12 movement, You know what I
(32:47):
mean? So it becomes this battle of
like orgs where I'm like we are not on the same page.
And then let's go all all the way go back when I go to my lit
review and I go to my work and Igo back to like my ancestors who
fought for ethnic studies, rightin 1960, in the 1960's, the
promise for Asian American studies came out of anti
imperialism, right? Came out of abolition, came out
(33:11):
of community engaged work, came out of like self determination.
And it was definitely pro Palestinian at that time, you
know, so it it is really difficult to see the promise of
ethnic studies and the promise the promise for Asian American
studies be Co opted and professionalized, because when
it goes through the professionalprocess, it gets watered down
(33:35):
into this neoliberal market. I say neoliberal to be very
explicit about neoliberalism being a policy of privatization.
Let's say that an education, right?
That's one armored neoliberalismthat every the liberal arm of
the kind of laissez faire approach to business, right
becomes this idea of like, OK, why don't we allow that and
(33:57):
actually put the, the public good into a private good, right?
And because that there's all these choices of movements,
Asian American K12 movement. And to me, I don't want to say
there's all these choices. I want to say that these are
false choices, right? There's definitely one that is
(34:17):
trying to take the credit of theK12 movement and brand itself
and become the professional organization organizations
because there's not just one type of task out there.
And there's ones that have been in the movement since the
inception, not the inception of ethnic studies, but like
embodies the promise of ethnic studies, embodies the promise of
Asian American studies, right? So that's what I want to say
(34:39):
about that right now. I talked about so in in summary,
I talked about kind of like someorgans who deserve spotlight.
I talked about some like complicated organizations,
right, like task. I talked about I, I, I and I
don't I don't to be honest with you, let's put a spotlight to
Florida. Florida passed DeSantis.
Let's say DeSantis passed Asian racking K12 policy.
(35:01):
That's a big question mark, right?
There's like a lot of states that passing it in Wisconsin,
where I live passed it, right? I'm glad to be in this coalition
because I know everyone in the coalition, for the most part,
they embody an anti racist lens.They embody the hope for ethnic
studies, right? But in, in, in Florida and I had
work to do in Florida. You got a question, Why are you
(35:23):
passing Asian American studies when you're banning AP African
American studies, right? Like when you're, you're like
harming LGBT studies and cuttingtheir budgets, right?
Harming transgender folks, right?
That's something you have to question.
So a lot of complexities that I feel like I'm trying to charge
(35:43):
everyone to grapple with and notjust take for face value, if
that makes sense. Yeah.
And I truly appreciate, you know, bringing this complexity
into this conversation because, you know, as you and I have also
been in the order of philanthropy, you know, you
know, being nonprofit majors in our master's program, like
foundations are a tough bunch todeal with because they do a lot
(36:06):
of funding, but also where do they get their funding from?
You know, it's like, and I thinkthat's very important to know
that a lot of that wealth was hoarded, you know, over time.
And, and I think that it createslike this dynamic because like
funding becomes like what drivesthe policy, the direction that
it goes under. And I'm really glad that you
(36:27):
bring this up. I mean, I know we could spend
like a lot of time on that. And, and they're breaking it
down as to why certain foundations can be very
detrimental to the movement of, of folks that have been doing
this for decades and people thathave been doing it and
(36:48):
unfortunately passed away beforethey even seen any.
See the fruits of their labor. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Exactly. And you know, like like when you
look into the future in the nextfew months to the next few
years, what are you looking at and what and what does your
focus look like? Because I know you've touched
and I know you touched upon that, but I must like very
(37:10):
curious to know, like what does that look like for you as a
relevant educator, as a person who does the research and, you
know, speaks on this work, You know, for the next couple years
when there's constant threats. I mean we're only like 8 plus
months into this administration.Oh my goodness.
I've been very vocal. So for like a Palestinian voice,
(37:33):
right? Because I know that it's a part
of our promise for Asian American studies from our firm
inception. And I've been very vocal around
everything around book bands, right?
Like very promotional democraticeducation, right anywhere ethics
that is being attacked in some form, some way.
(37:54):
I try to start as a voice because I have a big platform
now, you know, a big, a big enough platform for things to be
shared a lot, right? So people will share work that
I, I produce, which is great. And I'm, I'm, I'm fortunate and
I'm glad the community helps do that.
My work is like, So what I'll, Iguess the way I answer this is
like, I'll talk about dissertation focus, right?
(38:16):
Like I'll talk about how like I go for my book, I'm
transitioning into my dissertation and where I think
I'm going, right? So like my book was focused on
the pedagogy, pro Asian, like a pedagogy which is grounded on
like pro blackness. Like how can I teach pro Asian
American studies in K12 with a pro Black, pro intersectional,
pro LGBT, pro indigenous lens, right?
And I think I accomplished that.I think I did that right.
(38:38):
And that was my practitioner side of like having 8 plus years
of experience in the classroom and instructional coach coaching
principles, being a consultant. So I have that lived experience.
Very auto. It's a very auto ethnographic
piece of work, citing some research.
There's a little bit of researchin there, but now that I'm
becoming full on researcher, like now I can critique my
(38:59):
theories, you know, like that was published in 2023.
Now I'm looking back, I'm like, Oh my, my theory on me.
Something about suck, which is the Filipino theory or no, not a
theory, epistemology and conceptaround like 1 down in solidarity
building from the anti martial law movements in the Philippines
in the 1970s. Is it not sufficient?
(39:21):
Right. And I want to bolster that with
empirical evidence. I want to bolster that theory
because I want things, my theories from the Filipino
culture in history and embodiment to go down and get
more accessible to the public because arguably people look at
Isan Baksak and like, what? What do you mean?
(39:42):
Don't they don't even know whereto index it.
And when I've taught it in the past, I've also been wrong.
So This is why it's important tobe in relationship and
constantly community engaged because how theory is produced
and how it's actually implemented and enacted, there
could be two different things happening, right?
The theory might not be practicing itself, right?
(40:04):
The way it's practice might be not the like the theory might be
watered down, right? So they need to always be in
conversation with each other. So this idea of practice,
theory, action and reflection actually get crystallized and
then all these theories in practice.
Move forward together as opposedto diverging, right?
I think that's what's happening.So I as a practitioner scholar,
(40:27):
community engaged scholar tries to do both at the same time.
So my theory is that by practice, right and people get
it right on the ground. So there's that lens and I'm
moving my decisions on Hmong or moob.
I know that more, more critical scholars of Hmong refugee
(40:48):
epistemologies and where you usemoob, right, to be more
inclusive, Capital H, capital MOOB, that's another whole
conversation we can have of this, but I'll use Moob, that
form of it with this conversation.
I study that because the bill for my dissertation, Act 266 for
Wisconsin is mandating Asian American K12 policy.
(41:10):
So we talked about Florida, we talked about the national K12
movement. Now I'm here in Wisconsin where
the bill has been passed and I try to, I'm trying to figure out
my role in that, right. What I learned is when I came
here, I came here to do implementation work.
I wanted people to implement this work because I knew that
K12 was this going to have an issue because everyone for the
(41:33):
most part doesn't know where to start with Asian America, let
alone moob studies like moob folks, so many of them, they
reject the Asian American inaugurated qualifier.
That's why this bill is called Hmong and Asian American
education policy as opposed to just Asian American education
policy, right? So there's this level of ah.
(41:54):
So when Ma Vaang says secret history on the run, secrecy,
fugitivity and among refugee epistemologies, we have to be
very critical around why mood folks separated themselves from
the Asian Americans because theyfilled invisible lies right in
the Asian American movement, right.
So like. Yeah, like Pacific Islanders and
(42:16):
Hawaiians in this in this conversation, Yeah.
Filipinos do that too. Filipinos reject a lot of them
reject Asian market qualifier. Some of them identify as Pacific
Islanders. If you've read like Latinos of
Asia by sociologist Anthony De Ocampo, he he has like that's
his whole premise is like they Filipinos, at least in this site
(42:37):
in California, identify as Latino of Asia, right in some
form, in some way. And I'm like, yeah, they reject
the Asian American classifier because they've been omitted or
misrepresented or erased in Asian American movement building
spaces. And I get that.
So what we're where I'm at now with my decision is trying to
track the policy advocacy and the organizing that led up to
(42:58):
the passage. Because what I know to be true
was that one Asian American education leadership, like when
it comes to Asian Americans, monk folks, MU folks in K12
leadership, we're omitted. Like there's like this idea of
this the the glass ceiling for regular like at normal, that's a
glass ceiling. That's just like you've reached
the tipping point. Like women can't get into like
(43:20):
leadership right positions because we've reached the gas
ceiling. But for Asian Americans, people
have theorized the bamboo ceiling, right?
And I would say I would argue that's true for policy advocacy
and leadership and education, because how many superintendents
can you name our Asian American MU?
How many can you name that are principals?
You know, they're such a small group in, in, in, in comparison
(43:43):
to how many students? And that identifies Moob or
Asian American in Minnesota and Wisconsin, right, and New York
and California. And I even met like the first, I
think the first Moob. I think she identifies as Moog,
Moog Superintendent a Misty Herb, right?
She, she's, she's that's amazing, right?
(44:04):
She is her ancestor's wildest dreams right now, right to know
that. But we we need more of her in
these spaces. So right now to uncover the
policy advocacies, to learn about who was involved, who
should we be positioning as leaders who are moob, who are
Asian American, who fought for this policy?
(44:25):
Wait 20 years before, 10 years before, you know, it's not just
Governor Tony Evers signing a bill that says, oh, you know, he
decided to this to the past Asian American policy because
people are talking about it. No, there's been organizing,
there's been multiple policy conversations, policy windows
and especially monk folks and MUfolks have been fighting for
(44:47):
that for a long time. I want to unearth those stories.
I want to help amplify those stories so that people can see
these count. Is it a counter story?
I was about to say counter story.
Is it a counter story or is it the main story?
You know what I mean? A lot of people would like to
use counter story, but really tome it's like the main story
that's just been erased or omitted, right?
So my job right now is a qualitative kind of oral
(45:11):
historian right now. And I look at policy, the policy
cycle and organizing spaces to learn like who who are the plugs
essentially? Who are the plugs to make this
happen, right? Who is not being talked about?
Who, who should have? What part of Wisconsin should I
be going to to visit to learn about their organizing, right?
At what point in time was this like did we get a lot of
(45:32):
organizing, a lot of heat and energy around Asian American and
moob education policy? It wasn't just the stop Asian
hate movement. There's something before and why
don't we know that story? That's another good question.
Why don't we know that story? Was it because people was it
because they self opted out? Were they trying to be fugitive
and keep keeping this knowledge as secrecy right.
(45:54):
As Ma Vong says in her book for monk epistemologies for the at
least for the secret war, there's some stories that among
folks didn't want to tell. They, they, they, they decided
not, they didn't because it was too traumatic or they didn't
feel like they, the public deserve those stories to know.
And I think that's powerful because that's self
determination, right? So where do I find that self
(46:16):
determination in the organizing and policy advocacy for the
state of Wisconsin, for Asian American, these poor people and
among folks. So that's where I'm going right
now, which pushes me into this world of critical refugee
studies, which pushes me into understanding, making all these
connections to like what's happening Alistine, what's
happening in Sudan, the Congo, right?
Because before I used to focus on such an American American
(46:39):
like site for analysis. But the more and more I get
critical about how Asian Americais both here and there, it's
it's transnational just by its, by its conception, right.
The more and more I try to make sure that when people are
talking about Asian America, they mean this consciousness
(47:02):
that goes back and forth betweenthe motherland and here and
everywhere in between, if that makes sense.
Cool. Yeah, I know.
I really appreciate this full lens that you're giving us too.
And I know that as we start to wrap up right now, what advice
would you give to fellow educators, K through 12 college
and parents that are really trying to resist this work?
(47:25):
And also shout out to librariansas well because they too are
also taking a huge, a huge, hugehit with this.
So what can you say to them as far as how to navigate this and
what they need to hopefully be more optimistic about in this
very, very challenging time? I would say like, Oh yeah, shout
(47:48):
out to the librarians for sure. Like I in particular like my
book, it's not big enough. I would say.
I, I think it should be because my book is compounding
invisibility of Asians, right? There shouldn't be Asian
invisibility, but librarians have been picking up the book
and adopting it in their libraries and I'm like, yes,
that's cool. Teachers should be have it
readily available for free. This is cool.
(48:09):
So shout out to the librarians, you know, who are like
constantly adopting books, like using their budgets for the
right purposes, getting all the banned books, putting the and
stocking their shelves, right, putting queer trans BIPOC
imagery into their the shelves for kids who identify as such
to, to just soak up right. Because I didn't have that
option, right, to understand what is queerness?
(48:30):
What, what is queerness for me, right, gender expressiveness for
me, right? And then for parents, like for
parents, like they could honestly, they need to like with
this idea of choice, right? This idea of choice, like they
do have a choice. They have a choice to reinvest
their capital, their time and supporting.
(48:52):
I hate using bike, POC, BIPOC, but BIPOC is like some of the
terms right now for like anyone who's minoritized or racially
minoritized. But let's just say minoritized
peoples buy their books. There's so many authors getting
their work out there. Buy read it to your kids.
If you're an educator, let's talk about all the levels
parents, right? Buy the children's books.
(49:13):
You fill your libraries with that, right?
Go to library, support the library, make it cyclical,
right? Donate the books you've already
read, right? Once they age out to other
folks, right, so they can grab them.
And then for teachers, administrators like Lee support,
like working with us, right? Work with people who are, who
(49:35):
are, who are doing the fight loudly, right, who are pro
Palestinian, Palestinian, right,who are anti Zionist.
They are, they're, they're political.
These are the templates we're learning from to maintain our
sense of self determination, right?
And I know that's difficult because it's difficult because
(49:56):
there's a lot of surveillance right now.
And if you get surveilled, moneycan be taken away or you can be
punished, right? So find your way.
I like the word fugitivity because Malvang's using it and I
know that other scholars use it as well.
I don't want it to be some type of inaccessible term.
Fugitivity is very much rooted in like black radical traditions
(50:17):
to teach right to teach kids when especially when teaching
and learning was taken away fromthem right during Jim Carroll,
right during that era. And for this, for, for Mong and
Moo folks, fugitivity is a lens of like understanding yourself
in relation to this history that's on the run, right?
(50:39):
This history's ever changing andever shifting.
Which knowledge can you keep secret?
Which knowledge do you give out to people, right?
Your fugitivity, I mean, you don't tell everyone that you're
doing the, the work. You're just doing the work,
right? You're just supporting us.
You don't have to put it on social media and amplify it.
If you feel like you're in a position that's going to put you
to that will cancel systems of equity work, then you don't need
(51:03):
to amplify that. Just do it, right.
You can change the name. You know, some people have been
doing it. I hate that people are using it
as a strategy for survival, but they have to for survival right
now. In these next four years.
If you are changing the name to survive and have those like
continue supporting radical workor just humane work, like I
(51:23):
don't even want to call it radical.
It's just humanizing work, right?
Then keep doing it. This is a moment where
fugitivity is really important for survival.
Like especially for this any state, state supported agencies
like the Department of Education.
If you are in a state that especially like Florida and
you're, you're, you're trying toget this work to your schools,
(51:45):
just do it and rename it. If you need to rename it,
support. And we'll, you know, people like
myself, consultants will, will be willing to support you also.
Like, you just need to reach out.
Yeah. Yeah, thank you so much for
naming Fugitivity and for really, you know, naming these
important talking points and also like, you know, just
(52:06):
getting the pot going and and seeing that there's non linear
strategies to make this work. And I also want to say thank you
so much for being on my show. I mean, gosh, like, you know,
being away for two years, I'm like, gosh, I, I started to like
regret like this past couple months.
I'm like, man, I would love thatTony on my show because we're in
like such a very critical point right now.
(52:28):
And I'm so glad to be back. But also like many people like
you along showing us the blueprint of what you are doing
and just passing that knowledge along.
So really thank you for doing that.
Oh, it's an honor to be at a show and I'm I'm grateful to you
know, this could have been a whole class that we Co teach
together. You know what I mean?
Like we are talking about org theory, fugitivity mong Asian
(52:50):
American news for ethnic studies.
So there was some a lot of hopefully people when they hear
this, they get some bite sized content that they can just take
away and contextualize with their specific context.
And that's the point of this podcast, right?
To not get everything, but able to be full with something right
to to take something home. Thank you so much and best of
(53:11):
luck to your work and and also, you know, be safe and yeah, all
the bus to all the educators andlibrarians and who are doing the
the levy lifting right now. Yep.
Absolutely. Thank you.
Hey everyone, this is Randy Kim from the Bundy Chronicles
podcast and I have been very excited to bring on this guest
for quite some time. And, and this is the person I've
been watching vicariously over the past few years because we
have a number of mutual friends who have been involved in the
activism work, specifically in the Asian American community and
(00:25):
anti racism and racial solidarity work.
And so Tony de La Rosa is a father, He's a husband.
He's an award-winning Filipino American author, spoken word
poet, educator, coach and researcher.
Tony holds a background and Asian Studies at the University
of Cincinnati, a Master's with afocus on art education and
(00:48):
nonprofit management from Harvard University, and is
currently pursuing his PhD in Education Leadership and Policy
Analysis at the University of Wisconsin Madison.
So I will also say that Tony recently released his book
Teaching the Invisible Race, which is critically claimed.
(01:09):
It has definitely been in the hands of like many educators
and, and, and I want to bring Tony on because he brings a lot
of light into the DEI anti racism work, which has clearly
been a hot button issue for the past few years.
And first of all, welcome Tony. I really appreciate you being
(01:30):
here. And how are you holding up these
days in the year of 2025 but only a mere few months?
Left Oh my goodness, thanks for having me.
I'm so it's an honor to be on this podcast the listening to it
and I'm just like excited to bring you know, the cage bald
lens to this to this space. How am I holding you up?
(01:54):
I mean, you know, as a parent of22 these kiddos, it's just been
it's been a joy to watch. It's been also very just
stressful and heavy to know simultaneously that, you know, I
always say teach the word and teach the world, which I've
learned as a critical educator. And you know, right now what's
(02:18):
happening in Casa, right? What's happening in Sudan,
Congo, Philippines, like all this, like being able to being
able to see everything, especially on social media to
reflect on how I'm raising my child to build a better world
for kids, you know, for themselves, not only for
themselves, but the community. And knowing that other kids are
(02:39):
not getting the opportunity is so critical for me right now.
Just being able to raise them through an anti racist lens,
right? And also not to, not to also be
too heavy on them to balance it all everyday.
Because yeah, parenting is at bouncing as you tell.
I just jumped into the my parentidentity because that is like
everything I had like lack of sleep the last few days because
(03:02):
kiddos are teething, you know, which is a part of normal
development. My, my baby Malaya, well, she's
a toddler now, is teething. And then my son, he has a little
fever right now going in and outof it.
So there's just a lot at home, but I'm just happy because it is
warm outside. I'm in Madison, WI, which is
generally more progressive meaning like it is, I can, I can
(03:27):
be myself. I'm not worried about I can be
myself on, on apologetically. You know, there's a lot of white
people here, right? But generally Midwest niceness
is kind of the ethos here. So I, it's kind of like I enter
the world here and I asked for, I don't ask for permission.
(03:48):
I asked for I guess like grace later on after I do the thing
that I need to get done right, whether it's an organizing act
or an anti racist, anti racist teaching or something like that,
Our presentation, I always ask for grace later even if people
are not like ready for what I have to say.
So anyways, I'm generally feeling good.
(04:09):
Thank you for asking. Yeah, I think it's very
interesting that you point up your role as a father too, and
actually as a person who's not aparent.
I'm always very curious to see what fellow parents are
navigating with their kids, whatthey are seeing, because how we
grew up is exponentially very different.
(04:31):
I mean, in terms of access to technology.
There was a time when technologywas not in our faces 24/7 as it
is now. So when you are talking to your
kids or actually what you're seeing from the public school
lens, what are you actually seeing with how, how kids are
(04:51):
consuming current events? And you know, whether it's like
on through social media or through any kind of any, any
kind of digital format. I'm I'm very curious to know how
they are absorbing that and how do you as a parent navigate
through that? Yes, I can answer from a lens of
(05:13):
parents. I can answer from a lens of what
I'm seeing in education because I was a consultant and a coach.
So from a parent I know, you know, my my son is going to just
transfer daycare to pre-K right.And I had like written a poem
recently about kind of his like a moment when we are like
(05:36):
reading a book, you know, talking about Ariel Little
Mermaid, because Little Mermaid,he's gender expansive.
So he was saying I want to be a mermaid.
I want to be like Ariel and thenbut then he would say I'm not
like not like the black Ariel. And I'm like, what do you mean?
And then like they'll go spiralslike, you know, my heart rate
(05:57):
kind of just my cortisol goes upand like what?
What do you mean? Not the black Ariel.
You know, I have all these pro black books.
You know, I'm an anti racist educator.
So you wouldn't think naturally that would filter down to my son
and my kids. But notions of anti blackness is
so insidious and so tricky to spot and where they are.
(06:19):
And I'm like, so that's anti blacks, but I don't teach him
that. So where's it coming from?
So from his school, where's it coming from?
It's not yet. So other kids are saying in his
classroom, cool around like I don't like this teacher's skin
because of XY and Z, but I like this other person's skin, you
know, so they're talking about skin tones and, and what I came
down to it. When it came down to it, I, I
(06:40):
realized that the anti blacknessis so insidious and pro
whiteness for white supremacy isso just like built in the system
and so explicit that we have to try so hard to on to challenge
those systems every day in orderfor them not to actually
naturally get raised into an anti black mindset, right.
(07:01):
So that's like from the children's perspective.
And I haven't even barely talkedto him about Palestine.
I am talking about Palestine, you know, like how to usher that
he thinks it's very tragic and sad.
I can tell that he has a lot of empathy in his head.
He whenever I talked about like displacement, you know, I'm also
talking I'm learning about Meng refugee status, right?
And that's part of my dissertation studies.
(07:24):
So I have to read a lot of fugitive work from different
scholars, like right and Chindu,her.
And I'm like, yeah, why? He's like, why don't they not
have a home, you know? And like trying to describe
statelessness to him is really difficult.
There's barely any books on that, you know what I mean?
And resources. What he's getting from school is
(07:46):
pretty much like the technical skills of getting into a get
into K according to kindergarten, right?
He's not getting democratic, critically democratic skills or
critically literate skills to navigate the world critically,
right? So I'm providing that.
And then when I go into the K12 system, because I was a former
instructional coach and Miami-Dade, like I went all the
(08:07):
way up to way all the way down to Homestead, which is like very
far, like a lot of Central American and Mexican American
population, farmland area, and then all the way up to North
Miami and Central Miami. So it's such a huge drive and
huge distant demographic and from 1 lens to the next one, one
(08:27):
space to the next. What is true is that people are
struggling to understand they're, I mean, I already know
since I'm looking at curriculum from different teachers, they're
not getting ethnic studies. No one's really teaching ethnic
studies unless you are pro blackor pro ethnic studies and took
that in undergrad. You know, like we're really like
(08:48):
in a humanities course. You're not teaching that into
your K12 curriculum. You're not altering it because
what's what you're battling against is the speed of time.
And, and it's really difficult to like take time out of your
schedule, your busy schedule, your 9:00 to 5:00 as a teacher
to change the curriculum and plan because lesson planning
(09:08):
takes a long time. And then calling parents, right?
And then making sure that kids get to school, you know, making
sure if they're not kids are notthere, checking in on them and
then grading, right? So it's the system's really
against them. And what I basically what I'm
saying. So I'm always looking for
resources that kind of are able to supplement educators have the
(09:33):
easiest lift for them to bring critical pedagogy and knowledge
into their work, right? I always try to find that for
people online, whether it's on like social media or from a
colleague. I'm at UW Madison, so it's a
great school for curriculum and instruction.
It's like I think #1 ranked for that.
And then for my son, I'm just telling myself everyday I need
(09:56):
to for at least like the the micro issue of my anti blackness
and extreme pro whiteness in which he's seeing like his at
one point he like, you know, notthis, not to say this is a
trivial thing. Like he was like in frozen,
right, Frozen and the Princess in frozen is bond, you know,
like, and then he likes Rapunzel, you know, and Ariel
(10:18):
and I'm like all these white princesses, right, which is not
a bad thing because princesses are awesome.
You know, like, I love that about that.
As a male, he wants to expand his gender identity and embody
what a female or let's not conflate with women, like
practice gender, right, practicegender in an inexpensive way.
But to know that being surrounded by just feminist
(10:43):
theory is not enough and having to have to supplement with
critical race theory, right, If you will, to actually bring it
down to the level of pre-K at the pre-K level.
And knowing that I, if I don't do that, you would actually be
socialized to love whiteness. That's something that I'm always
(11:04):
critical of, right? So from from a parent lens and
from a school lens, we have a lot of work to do.
Yeah, I think you bring up a good point.
Like we are racing against time,especially for those in the DEI
work. And it's no coincidence like in
the 2024 election that the the young Gen.
Z voters have started to make that shift towards the Trumpism.
(11:27):
And also and also it's no coincidence that the Republicans
have made this a campaign to endDEI.
So with that said, I wonder whatdoes the, what have you observed
from the Trump administration that has severely impacted DI
(11:48):
work and education across the US?
And I mean, I don't know where to begin with that.
I know that this is a very loaded question.
Again, Yeah, yeah, that's a veryloaded question.
It's like where do I begin? Where do I start?
I I think just like if you're asking me most rest most recent,
because this has been ongoing, right?
(12:09):
Like even before Trump got elected, there was Republicans,
conservatives and Democrats, right, who were promoting very
harmful content, right, to preserve whiteness, right,
because whiteness is, is a widespread across.
(12:30):
It's, it's, it is agnostic in the sense that whiteness is
everywhere, right? Whiteness is on both sides.
If we use a colloquial politicalterm.
But I'll say during Trump, what got really elevated is the
explicit, the very explicit, nonhidden versions, like saying the
the quiet thing loud, right? That the permissions I write in
(12:51):
my book like there's permissionsbeing given to now act on your
ideology of racism. Right?
Before there wasn't so much permission to act on it, but
now, like Part 2 of Trump, he's like explicitly like, oh, well,
no accountability for me. Like I could do whatever I want.
I can get convicted and I could,I can swap my, my, my wand and
(13:15):
anything could happen, right? And I can use money to protect
me. Like that's kind of what we're
dealing with in terms of the, the, the bottom up.
And then on a tangible moment, Prager University, right, which
is like a very conservative education think tank
organization that kind of arose and now is scaling across the US
(13:37):
to promote conservative ideals, right?
To, you know, 1 to 1 lens. I saw something on social media
that was teaching a lesson on slavery and how it wasn't that
bad, right? Wow, you know what I'm saying?
Like to even use that phrase to the simplest phrase, slavery
wasn't that bad or slavery was normal.
(13:58):
Normalizing slavery as a normal thing undos undoes so much work
that a lot of my ancestors worked on a lot of people I look
up to. Right?
Womanist, queer feminist scholars have been working
against right to this build thislanguage systems and ideologies
(14:19):
to combat and preserve one theirhumanity and combat a system
that has been minoritizing them and harming them, right?
So Prager University is an org, right?
So they're producing curriculum textbooks, right?
It's wants to be a university, right?
It wants to promote its resources through P through 20,
(14:41):
right? Not just for the K12 scene, but
through higher Ed right. And I've seen recently more,
more conservative political pundits saying like we need 50%
of conservatives, conservative staff and faculty off these
higher education higher Ed institutions.
(15:04):
Like for me, like I switched in 2022 to from a practitioner into
the higher Ed track because I wanted to archive and theorize
critical Philippinex, critical Asian American studies work with
education because that just thatwasn't happening enough, right?
I wrote my book Teaching the Invisible Race because I knew
(15:24):
that in 2020 it was an intervention to the lack of
Asian American representation, history and perspectives in our
curricula, right? You look at Sony and ANS and
Marion Rodriguez's research, they look at standards, social
study standards across curriculaand literally the only standards
(15:44):
that come up are East Asian narratives, right?
Japanese, Chinese policies, right?
Sprinkle a little Filipino, sprinkle a little Vietnamese,
sprinkle a little Korean, and everyone else goes aggregately
Asian, right? Which is harmful because if you
agree all of us, then you, we don't target a lot of us, right?
You target mostly East Asian folks.
(16:05):
And then mostly what happens is like this model minority
narrative of Asian Americans, right?
As opposed to like the resistance capital or resistance
narratives that I'm looking for and I'm looking to teach my
kids, right? So right now we got Prager you
was that I said we have the attack on higher education
(16:25):
institutions. We have the attack on ethnic
studies. You know, out of California,
there's a bill that's trying to censor and like actually punish
anyone who tries to teach about Palestine, right.
Wow. You know, that's, that's backed
by Zionist propaganda and Zionist policies, right?
And Zionist policies are backed by both Democrats and
(16:46):
Republicans is what's why I'm saying that's why I'm saying
like it. It's not just a conservative
thing, right? So it's like, where do we start,
right? Where do we, where do we?
It's like which we can pick a plethora of issues right now.
What I'm trying to focus on is ethnic studies, right?
Ethnic studies in the Midwest, right?
(17:07):
What I'm trying to do is take local control, local because I
don't have so much time and energy as much as a parent and
as his father, like I don't knowhow much time, right.
So I got to be very strategic about always spend my time.
And I was talking to an organizer and poet and educator,
Teresa Siagatono. And she's out of Oakland.
(17:28):
And you know, there's this, there's this romanticism she
would say about like, oh, everyone needs to move and
there's going to be an exodus and move to the these bastions
of, of Democratic or liberal thought like in the Oakland Bay
Area or go back to New York and leave.
I'm like, no, no, no. She was like, you need to stay
in a stronghold. If you feel strong and you have
a connection and organizing connection, a voice in the
(17:51):
Midwest, stay there. She was like, she's like, you
stay there. You built that you, that's where
your voice is. I don't have power that like you
do in the Midwest. And I'm like, you're absolutely
correct. If I could become a professor
that helps challenge the systemsand promote equity, deep
diversity and inclusion. But generally, mostly what I
really mean is ethnic studies atall lands at all levels.
(18:12):
If I could do that in the Midwest, I would love to stay
here. You know what I mean?
But knowing that my job, also the job market for higher
education is very slim these days because there's a tack on
the entire market. I'm going to, I'm going to take
my energy wherever I can, right?But right now for now I'm doing
it locally. Yeah, Thank you for really, you
(18:32):
know, taking us through this webof of uncertainty that's going
on that a lot of people are not even aware of because people
think like the is just a simple,you know, let's talk about
diversity. I mean, this is complex and I
think that what you really shareis very deep into like of why
this history needs to be told and how it's being told and, and
(18:55):
also trying to navigate the institutions in the system that
are in place that actually benefited from not having DEI.
And so it's like it's a it's basically trying to play which
game is going to work. And I'm also like very curious
about how other school districtsand institutions and Democrat
(19:16):
run cities and states are looking to counter the anti DEI
work. So I'm looking for templates of
like 6 sex success templates of like K12 districts right?
To see like are there people whoare like just on the offensive
all right? Like why are we always defending
(19:36):
ourselves when we can? I would love to be with
leadership templates of who's disrupted in this work, right?
And honestly, I have a limited scope because I don't study
juristic level work, but it's helpful for me to as a
consultant and speaker because Igenerally partner with those
districts, right? As a consultant, I'm like,
that's how I survive as a business owner, as a small
business owner, I'm like, well, I need to go to states that have
(20:00):
very democratic ideas, very progressive ideas that still do
DEI work, right? So Illinois is like somewhere I
wanted to partner because especially.
They are the 1st place that passed like Asian American
education teachable policy, right, with the TEACH Act.
But even with that, you know, you know, they're still being
attached by the national, the federal government, right?
(20:20):
Which they're still winning in many ways at the national level.
But at the local level, I, I, I can't even tell you, I haven't
done any research on it, like how implementation is happening.
Is it impacted? I would say my business partners
in New York though, I, I run a program called the Asian
American Teaching Empowerment Networking Initiative.
It's like the, it like basicallysupports and recruits Asian
(20:42):
American male teachers in New York City public schools.
Our budget is not impacted by any of this.
And I asked why they just were committed for a long period, for
a long time. So and anal, it's New York's
pretty progressive. So I mean, New York City, it's
pretty progressive. So I was like, thankfully this
(21:04):
is awesome. So some people that some places
are not impacted, which is cool to know.
Some budgets from the micro level, some arms of the
districts are not impacted, maybe some others are, you know
what I mean? But this nonprofit, NYC Menteech
was not impacted in that way, right?
Hopefully this doesn't out them and they become a target via me
talking about them on this podcast 'cause I love the work
that they do. But I would say that in terms of
(21:28):
broadly what people are doing, they're changing their office
language name, right? Like equity and inclusion
becomes the well-being and community office, right?
They either change it into well-being spaces, which I've
seen happen. Like I have a lot of friends who
are diversity, equity, inclusionofficers.
They don't have that name now astheir role.
(21:50):
They're the chief well-being officer or what other districts
are doing are just doubling down, right?
Doubling down on the equity work.
So I, I, I think, let me try to think, I'm trying to think of
like a good template because I haven't heard much right now,
because even California, many districts now are being attacked
right now. And you would think that it's a
(22:10):
bastion in California. And I haven't really seen a
district not get attacked, right.
Like even San Francisco, in particular, Unified School
District with its transition in superintendency, like recently I
was called in to speak, like notspeak, but like to mobilize
resources. And you know, I use my, my, my
Instagram to amplify issues happening in the community
(22:32):
turning to ethnic studies. And a lot of the leaders were
asking me to pressure the pressure by educating people and
putting pressure on this new Superintendent who happened to
be Asian, right, to preserve ethnic studies, because people
are trying to like, Zionist and conservatives were trying to
like, limit the amount of ethnicstudies that was going to be
(22:54):
implemented in the school district.
Right Now it's like implemented,right?
And it's like the heartland for ethnic studies in K12 and higher
education, right? That's where I was born in San
Francisco. So I'm like, what?
So I can't even tell you. I can't even say like, what's
that? What's their real strategy right
now? I know people are renaming and
rebranding, right? They're shifting resources,
right? I know that at the higher level
(23:17):
they are doing layoffs, right? And they are redistributing
resources and instead of having a central office making sure
their DEI values are just integrated, right.
And I think that's an important thing like equity of resource
allocation. If that's the, if that's a, if
that's a strategy that you want to preserve, then you just do
(23:38):
the thing. You don't have to name it equity
resource allocation. You just resource, you just have
different groups that that had not the level of resources that
they needed in the past, like the Black Student Union, for
example, get the resources they need to continue their
programming. You know what I mean?
Like that's just one example. So people, do I have like the
(24:02):
strategy? Do I have the solution, the
panacea, the panacea to solve every district?
No, because every district's different.
Everyone's, everyone. Every time I go into a meeting,
at least in my PhD program, a hall group meeting, the leaders
are saying they start off the meeting with we don't know what
(24:24):
we're doing. We're trying our best to keep
you updated. We're talking to as many equity
Ford people as possible to preserve what we're doing right
now in the midst of attacks. And it's really difficult.
So we appreciate your grace and it's the same time.
We're not going to let you down,which I love.
(24:44):
I love that they they put a stake in the ground and say like
we're going to try our best to not let, whether it's to like
high, like re change their name or whatever, they're going to
try to keep us afloat because they know that we need to get
our work done out there, right? They know that we deserve to
continue producing equity work. So a lot of a lot of
(25:04):
descriptions but not a lot of specific answers for you.
But it's a non specific in a very abstract time that makes
sense. Yeah, to also like make a like a
slight pivot here, like as an 8,as a queer Asian American,
specifically Vietnamese and Cambodian, like I grew up in a
predominantly white community and which is very common for a
(25:27):
lot of folks that Asian folks that did not live in the coastal
cities that live in the Midwest and the South.
And like, like for me, I did notknow who Doctor Honani K Trask
Gray, Gracie Boggs, Fred Karamatsu or even Lapu Lapu
until like I was in my 30s. And I'm for context, I'm 42.
(25:50):
And so like I had gone K to 12 without knowing any of my Asian
American history. And if there was, it was
basically like the Japanese in World War 2 and the Vietnam War.
So we were seen as the villains in our story and nothing about
the humanity of them. And I see how dangerous this is
(26:12):
because, you know, to deal with like, white students that
absolutely took that narrative and ran with it, which allowed
them to be pretty cruel. I think this is what's really
important is that, you know, when we don't talk about the
Chinese Exclusion Act or what happened to Vincent Chen or the
European colonization that has done to destroy generations of
(26:35):
people in Asia, Africa and LatinAmerica.
I think like like what do you see as the potential North star
in all of this? I think, I think like I see the
power of knowing this because the reason why I knew about
these historical figures and these events is because of
(26:56):
movement folks, people in the activist movement and in the
digital community and who have been doing the groundwork.
And that's the only way I've been able to know about it.
So that also tells me that that my fellow peers who are not as
informed, unfortunately do not know that.
(27:18):
And there are consequences to not knowing our history and what
that leads to, and what unconscious biases can do.
Yeah. What is our North Star?
And you're asking like, what is our North Star with like with
now people trying to, you know, having these resources more
readily available basically is that what you're asking like?
(27:40):
Yes, yeah, let's yeah, let's yeah.
Let's go for. Let's go with that part, yeah.
Yeah, I, I think like, you know,since I study like the Asian
American K12 movement right now,which is the a response to the
rise of Stop Asian hate, right? It's like the movement has been
kind of talked about post I say I call it my dissertation post
(28:01):
Stop Asian Hate when I always put like quote, UN quote Marx,
because, you know, stop Asian hate is the hate analysis unit
of analysis. That is like an interpersonal
like unit, right? If you just look at hate, then
you're looking you're you're looking too narrowly at the
issue, right, at the phenomenon,right, Because like you say, the
(28:22):
Chinese Exclusion Act, right, Naturalization Act is 17
nineties, right? Like freaking Japanese
incarceration, like all there's so much policy that underpins
and that has impacted Asian diasporic peoples in America
before 2020, right? So like, that's something I just
(28:47):
want to know and say as we critique the stop Asian hate.
But the stop Asian phenomena, I would say put it, put Asian
American narratives on the map per SE in the media, right, Made
it accessible to a lot more people for once.
People lay people, let's say laypeople.
Why peers are asking like when Igo in a room and I ask them, do
you have you heard about stoppage and hate?
(29:09):
And I did actually hands up, youknow, like when I do my talks in
my book, that's one of the firstquestions I ask people.
I'm like, have you ever heard about the stoppage and hate
movement? And a lot of people are like,
yes, and I'm like, wow, this is a this is that's data for me.
That's like a metric And like that tells me that this
phenomenon, communities who fought, right, to get this stuff
(29:29):
in the media to get our histories out there to say that
they've been doing this for the last 20 plus years are getting
their time to shine, right? And then there's other people.
Well, I'm going to talk about this time to shine part.
And then there's people weaponizing it.
OK, let's talk about the people.Let's like put some love on
communities, right first, because I don't want to focus on
the negative all the time and some love on the communities
like coalition for children's families, like CICF and and New
(29:52):
York, right? Vanessa Lium, I think she's
Vietnamese American. I, I don't want to don't quote
me on that, but like she and herorganization have been fighting
for Asian American education curricular policy for like 20
plus years in New York City, right?
And now they're getting spotlighted, which is great.
You know, I'm glad they are, butthey should have way back,
right? I would say that like a recent
(30:17):
complex organization, I would say is like the Asian American
Foundation, Taff, right, who hasZionist like underpinned.
I don't want to stay too long onthis organization because
there's so much more out there. But Taff, for example, on the
Asian American Foundation, I waslike they're voted, I was voted
their community trailblazer where they featured me on Hulu,
like on a Hulu episode. The complexity here is that I I
(30:39):
learned post after that video was filmed of me that their,
their board chair was John Greenblatt, who's like the the
leader of the Zionist org anti defamation League, right ADL,
which is not it's very anti Palestinian and anti I would say
anti Asian American in that casescenario.
(31:00):
Anyways, I do I do want to shinelight to the education arm
because they are funding education initiatives for Asian
American studies in K12 and in IRN.
So meanwhile ethnic studies and a lot of things are being
attacked. They are funding a lot of the
work to be done for Asian American to promote, to amplify,
to, to bolster. So I've also received, I would
(31:22):
ask like, OK, I'll do a talk at UConn, UU, Connecticut, right?
And the professor that who hiredme said, oh, your money came
from the money that I'm paying. You came from Taf.
I'm like, oh, OK, this is interesting.
I will take it. And just I'm glad to keep that
knowledge going because I understand that even when in
(31:43):
that group at large, while I don't support it at large,
there's some dope education workbeing had and research being
promoted, right? And then let's move to Asian
American advancing justice, right?
They are an org that I fully support, right?
They are grass roots organizers,right?
(32:05):
They advocate for policy, they advocate a policy change.
They advocate for civic engagement, they advocate for
education proliferation. So they are getting bolstered,
right? People are shining the light to
them as experts as they should be to, you know, they help with
the teach Act in Illinois to getthat off the ground, right?
So that's cool to know that they're becoming a household
(32:27):
name in the Asian American K12 movement, right?
They can go to them the right people for resources, but they
can also the, the, the, the drawback is that people see any
phenomenon, they see a phenomenon, they capitalize on
it. So other organizations like
Taft, for example, will capitalize on it and they say
like, Hey, come to us, we're theK12 movement, You know what I
(32:47):
mean? So it becomes this battle of
like orgs where I'm like we are not on the same page.
And then let's go all all the way go back when I go to my lit
review and I go to my work and Igo back to like my ancestors who
fought for ethnic studies, rightin 1960, in the 1960's, the
promise for Asian American studies came out of anti
imperialism, right? Came out of abolition, came out
(33:11):
of community engaged work, came out of like self determination.
And it was definitely pro Palestinian at that time, you
know, so it it is really difficult to see the promise of
ethnic studies and the promise the promise for Asian American
studies be Co opted and professionalized, because when
it goes through the professionalprocess, it gets watered down
(33:35):
into this neoliberal market. I say neoliberal to be very
explicit about neoliberalism being a policy of privatization.
Let's say that an education, right?
That's one armored neoliberalismthat every the liberal arm of
the kind of laissez faire approach to business, right
becomes this idea of like, OK, why don't we allow that and
(33:57):
actually put the, the public good into a private good, right?
And because that there's all these choices of movements,
Asian American K12 movement. And to me, I don't want to say
there's all these choices. I want to say that these are
false choices, right? There's definitely one that is
(34:17):
trying to take the credit of theK12 movement and brand itself
and become the professional organization organizations
because there's not just one type of task out there.
And there's ones that have been in the movement since the
inception, not the inception of ethnic studies, but like
embodies the promise of ethnic studies, embodies the promise of
Asian American studies, right? So that's what I want to say
(34:39):
about that right now. I talked about so in in summary,
I talked about kind of like someorgans who deserve spotlight.
I talked about some like complicated organizations,
right, like task. I talked about I, I, I and I
don't I don't to be honest with you, let's put a spotlight to
Florida. Florida passed DeSantis.
Let's say DeSantis passed Asian racking K12 policy.
(35:01):
That's a big question mark, right?
There's like a lot of states that passing it in Wisconsin,
where I live passed it, right? I'm glad to be in this coalition
because I know everyone in the coalition, for the most part,
they embody an anti racist lens.They embody the hope for ethnic
studies, right? But in, in, in Florida and I had
work to do in Florida. You got a question, Why are you
(35:23):
passing Asian American studies when you're banning AP African
American studies, right? Like when you're, you're like
harming LGBT studies and cuttingtheir budgets, right?
Harming transgender folks, right?
That's something you have to question.
So a lot of complexities that I feel like I'm trying to charge
(35:43):
everyone to grapple with and notjust take for face value, if
that makes sense. Yeah.
And I truly appreciate, you know, bringing this complexity
into this conversation because, you know, as you and I have also
been in the order of philanthropy, you know, you
know, being nonprofit majors in our master's program, like
foundations are a tough bunch todeal with because they do a lot
(36:06):
of funding, but also where do they get their funding from?
You know, it's like, and I thinkthat's very important to know
that a lot of that wealth was hoarded, you know, over time.
And, and I think that it createslike this dynamic because like
funding becomes like what drivesthe policy, the direction that
it goes under. And I'm really glad that you
(36:27):
bring this up. I mean, I know we could spend
like a lot of time on that. And, and they're breaking it
down as to why certain foundations can be very
detrimental to the movement of, of folks that have been doing
this for decades and people thathave been doing it and
(36:48):
unfortunately passed away beforethey even seen any.
See the fruits of their labor. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Exactly. And you know, like like when you
look into the future in the nextfew months to the next few
years, what are you looking at and what and what does your
focus look like? Because I know you've touched
and I know you touched upon that, but I must like very
(37:10):
curious to know, like what does that look like for you as a
relevant educator, as a person who does the research and, you
know, speaks on this work, You know, for the next couple years
when there's constant threats. I mean we're only like 8 plus
months into this administration.Oh my goodness.
I've been very vocal. So for like a Palestinian voice,
(37:33):
right? Because I know that it's a part
of our promise for Asian American studies from our firm
inception. And I've been very vocal around
everything around book bands, right?
Like very promotional democraticeducation, right anywhere ethics
that is being attacked in some form, some way.
(37:54):
I try to start as a voice because I have a big platform
now, you know, a big, a big enough platform for things to be
shared a lot, right? So people will share work that
I, I produce, which is great. And I'm, I'm, I'm fortunate and
I'm glad the community helps do that.
My work is like, So what I'll, Iguess the way I answer this is
like, I'll talk about dissertation focus, right?
(38:16):
Like I'll talk about how like I go for my book, I'm
transitioning into my dissertation and where I think
I'm going, right? So like my book was focused on
the pedagogy, pro Asian, like a pedagogy which is grounded on
like pro blackness. Like how can I teach pro Asian
American studies in K12 with a pro Black, pro intersectional,
pro LGBT, pro indigenous lens, right?
And I think I accomplished that.I think I did that right.
(38:38):
And that was my practitioner side of like having 8 plus years
of experience in the classroom and instructional coach coaching
principles, being a consultant. So I have that lived experience.
Very auto. It's a very auto ethnographic
piece of work, citing some research.
There's a little bit of researchin there, but now that I'm
becoming full on researcher, like now I can critique my
(38:59):
theories, you know, like that was published in 2023.
Now I'm looking back, I'm like, Oh my, my theory on me.
Something about suck, which is the Filipino theory or no, not a
theory, epistemology and conceptaround like 1 down in solidarity
building from the anti martial law movements in the Philippines
in the 1970s. Is it not sufficient?
(39:21):
Right. And I want to bolster that with
empirical evidence. I want to bolster that theory
because I want things, my theories from the Filipino
culture in history and embodiment to go down and get
more accessible to the public because arguably people look at
Isan Baksak and like, what? What do you mean?
(39:42):
Don't they don't even know whereto index it.
And when I've taught it in the past, I've also been wrong.
So This is why it's important tobe in relationship and
constantly community engaged because how theory is produced
and how it's actually implemented and enacted, there
could be two different things happening, right?
The theory might not be practicing itself, right?
(40:04):
The way it's practice might be not the like the theory might be
watered down, right? So they need to always be in
conversation with each other. So this idea of practice,
theory, action and reflection actually get crystallized and
then all these theories in practice.
Move forward together as opposedto diverging, right?
I think that's what's happening.So I as a practitioner scholar,
(40:27):
community engaged scholar tries to do both at the same time.
So my theory is that by practice, right and people get
it right on the ground. So there's that lens and I'm
moving my decisions on Hmong or moob.
I know that more, more critical scholars of Hmong refugee
(40:48):
epistemologies and where you usemoob, right, to be more
inclusive, Capital H, capital MOOB, that's another whole
conversation we can have of this, but I'll use Moob, that
form of it with this conversation.
I study that because the bill for my dissertation, Act 266 for
Wisconsin is mandating Asian American K12 policy.
(41:10):
So we talked about Florida, we talked about the national K12
movement. Now I'm here in Wisconsin where
the bill has been passed and I try to, I'm trying to figure out
my role in that, right. What I learned is when I came
here, I came here to do implementation work.
I wanted people to implement this work because I knew that
K12 was this going to have an issue because everyone for the
(41:33):
most part doesn't know where to start with Asian America, let
alone moob studies like moob folks, so many of them, they
reject the Asian American inaugurated qualifier.
That's why this bill is called Hmong and Asian American
education policy as opposed to just Asian American education
policy, right? So there's this level of ah.
(41:54):
So when Ma Vaang says secret history on the run, secrecy,
fugitivity and among refugee epistemologies, we have to be
very critical around why mood folks separated themselves from
the Asian Americans because theyfilled invisible lies right in
the Asian American movement, right.
So like. Yeah, like Pacific Islanders and
(42:16):
Hawaiians in this in this conversation, Yeah.
Filipinos do that too. Filipinos reject a lot of them
reject Asian market qualifier. Some of them identify as Pacific
Islanders. If you've read like Latinos of
Asia by sociologist Anthony De Ocampo, he he has like that's
his whole premise is like they Filipinos, at least in this site
(42:37):
in California, identify as Latino of Asia, right in some
form, in some way. And I'm like, yeah, they reject
the Asian American classifier because they've been omitted or
misrepresented or erased in Asian American movement building
spaces. And I get that.
So what we're where I'm at now with my decision is trying to
track the policy advocacy and the organizing that led up to
(42:58):
the passage. Because what I know to be true
was that one Asian American education leadership, like when
it comes to Asian Americans, monk folks, MU folks in K12
leadership, we're omitted. Like there's like this idea of
this the the glass ceiling for regular like at normal, that's a
glass ceiling. That's just like you've reached
the tipping point. Like women can't get into like
(43:20):
leadership right positions because we've reached the gas
ceiling. But for Asian Americans, people
have theorized the bamboo ceiling, right?
And I would say I would argue that's true for policy advocacy
and leadership and education, because how many superintendents
can you name our Asian American MU?
How many can you name that are principals?
You know, they're such a small group in, in, in, in comparison
(43:43):
to how many students? And that identifies Moob or
Asian American in Minnesota and Wisconsin, right, and New York
and California. And I even met like the first, I
think the first Moob. I think she identifies as Moog,
Moog Superintendent a Misty Herb, right?
She, she's, she's that's amazing, right?
(44:04):
She is her ancestor's wildest dreams right now, right to know
that. But we we need more of her in
these spaces. So right now to uncover the
policy advocacies, to learn about who was involved, who
should we be positioning as leaders who are moob, who are
Asian American, who fought for this policy?
(44:25):
Wait 20 years before, 10 years before, you know, it's not just
Governor Tony Evers signing a bill that says, oh, you know, he
decided to this to the past Asian American policy because
people are talking about it. No, there's been organizing,
there's been multiple policy conversations, policy windows
and especially monk folks and MUfolks have been fighting for
(44:47):
that for a long time. I want to unearth those stories.
I want to help amplify those stories so that people can see
these count. Is it a counter story?
I was about to say counter story.
Is it a counter story or is it the main story?
You know what I mean? A lot of people would like to
use counter story, but really tome it's like the main story
that's just been erased or omitted, right?
So my job right now is a qualitative kind of oral
(45:11):
historian right now. And I look at policy, the policy
cycle and organizing spaces to learn like who who are the plugs
essentially? Who are the plugs to make this
happen, right? Who is not being talked about?
Who, who should have? What part of Wisconsin should I
be going to to visit to learn about their organizing, right?
At what point in time was this like did we get a lot of
(45:32):
organizing, a lot of heat and energy around Asian American and
moob education policy? It wasn't just the stop Asian
hate movement. There's something before and why
don't we know that story? That's another good question.
Why don't we know that story? Was it because people was it
because they self opted out? Were they trying to be fugitive
and keep keeping this knowledge as secrecy right.
(45:54):
As Ma Vong says in her book for monk epistemologies for the at
least for the secret war, there's some stories that among
folks didn't want to tell. They, they, they, they decided
not, they didn't because it was too traumatic or they didn't
feel like they, the public deserve those stories to know.
And I think that's powerful because that's self
determination, right? So where do I find that self
(46:16):
determination in the organizing and policy advocacy for the
state of Wisconsin, for Asian American, these poor people and
among folks. So that's where I'm going right
now, which pushes me into this world of critical refugee
studies, which pushes me into understanding, making all these
connections to like what's happening Alistine, what's
happening in Sudan, the Congo, right?
Because before I used to focus on such an American American
(46:39):
like site for analysis. But the more and more I get
critical about how Asian Americais both here and there, it's
it's transnational just by its, by its conception, right.
The more and more I try to make sure that when people are
talking about Asian America, they mean this consciousness
(47:02):
that goes back and forth betweenthe motherland and here and
everywhere in between, if that makes sense.
Cool. Yeah, I know.
I really appreciate this full lens that you're giving us too.
And I know that as we start to wrap up right now, what advice
would you give to fellow educators, K through 12 college
and parents that are really trying to resist this work?
(47:25):
And also shout out to librariansas well because they too are
also taking a huge, a huge, hugehit with this.
So what can you say to them as far as how to navigate this and
what they need to hopefully be more optimistic about in this
very, very challenging time? I would say like, Oh yeah, shout
(47:48):
out to the librarians for sure. Like I in particular like my
book, it's not big enough. I would say.
I, I think it should be because my book is compounding
invisibility of Asians, right? There shouldn't be Asian
invisibility, but librarians have been picking up the book
and adopting it in their libraries and I'm like, yes,
that's cool. Teachers should be have it
readily available for free. This is cool.
(48:09):
So shout out to the librarians, you know, who are like
constantly adopting books, like using their budgets for the
right purposes, getting all the banned books, putting the and
stocking their shelves, right, putting queer trans BIPOC
imagery into their the shelves for kids who identify as such
to, to just soak up right. Because I didn't have that
option, right, to understand what is queerness?
(48:30):
What, what is queerness for me, right, gender expressiveness for
me, right? And then for parents, like for
parents, like they could honestly, they need to like with
this idea of choice, right? This idea of choice, like they
do have a choice. They have a choice to reinvest
their capital, their time and supporting.
(48:52):
I hate using bike, POC, BIPOC, but BIPOC is like some of the
terms right now for like anyone who's minoritized or racially
minoritized. But let's just say minoritized
peoples buy their books. There's so many authors getting
their work out there. Buy read it to your kids.
If you're an educator, let's talk about all the levels
parents, right? Buy the children's books.
(49:13):
You fill your libraries with that, right?
Go to library, support the library, make it cyclical,
right? Donate the books you've already
read, right? Once they age out to other
folks, right, so they can grab them.
And then for teachers, administrators like Lee support,
like working with us, right? Work with people who are, who
(49:35):
are, who are doing the fight loudly, right, who are pro
Palestinian, Palestinian, right,who are anti Zionist.
They are, they're, they're political.
These are the templates we're learning from to maintain our
sense of self determination, right?
And I know that's difficult because it's difficult because
(49:56):
there's a lot of surveillance right now.
And if you get surveilled, moneycan be taken away or you can be
punished, right? So find your way.
I like the word fugitivity because Malvang's using it and I
know that other scholars use it as well.
I don't want it to be some type of inaccessible term.
Fugitivity is very much rooted in like black radical traditions
(50:17):
to teach right to teach kids when especially when teaching
and learning was taken away fromthem right during Jim Carroll,
right during that era. And for this, for, for Mong and
Moo folks, fugitivity is a lens of like understanding yourself
in relation to this history that's on the run, right?
(50:39):
This history's ever changing andever shifting.
Which knowledge can you keep secret?
Which knowledge do you give out to people, right?
Your fugitivity, I mean, you don't tell everyone that you're
doing the, the work. You're just doing the work,
right? You're just supporting us.
You don't have to put it on social media and amplify it.
If you feel like you're in a position that's going to put you
to that will cancel systems of equity work, then you don't need
(51:03):
to amplify that. Just do it, right.
You can change the name. You know, some people have been
doing it. I hate that people are using it
as a strategy for survival, but they have to for survival right
now. In these next four years.
If you are changing the name to survive and have those like
continue supporting radical workor just humane work, like I
(51:23):
don't even want to call it radical.
It's just humanizing work, right?
Then keep doing it. This is a moment where
fugitivity is really important for survival.
Like especially for this any state, state supported agencies
like the Department of Education.
If you are in a state that especially like Florida and
you're, you're, you're trying toget this work to your schools,
(51:45):
just do it and rename it. If you need to rename it,
support. And we'll, you know, people like
myself, consultants will, will be willing to support you also.
Like, you just need to reach out.
Yeah. Yeah, thank you so much for
naming Fugitivity and for really, you know, naming these
important talking points and also like, you know, just
(52:06):
getting the pot going and and seeing that there's non linear
strategies to make this work. And I also want to say thank you
so much for being on my show. I mean, gosh, like, you know,
being away for two years, I'm like, gosh, I, I started to like
regret like this past couple months.
I'm like, man, I would love thatTony on my show because we're in
like such a very critical point right now.
(52:28):
And I'm so glad to be back. But also like many people like
you along showing us the blueprint of what you are doing
and just passing that knowledge along.
So really thank you for doing that.
Oh, it's an honor to be at a show and I'm I'm grateful to you
know, this could have been a whole class that we Co teach
together. You know what I mean?
Like we are talking about org theory, fugitivity mong Asian
(52:50):
American news for ethnic studies.
So there was some a lot of hopefully people when they hear
this, they get some bite sized content that they can just take
away and contextualize with their specific context.
And that's the point of this podcast, right?
To not get everything, but able to be full with something right
to to take something home. Thank you so much and best of
(53:11):
luck to your work and and also, you know, be safe and yeah, all
the bus to all the educators andlibrarians and who are doing the
the levy lifting right now. Yep.
Absolutely. Thank you.
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